Speaking mainly in percentages, the Dapper One informed us a few weeks ago that the interims, when revealed in due course, would be something to see. They did not disappoint: turnover up 18.0% to R16.7billion for the six months to 23 December last, with profit up a positively whacking 20.8% to R1.8billion. Clothing and General Merchandise were up 23.6%, while Food was up 20.9%; Woolies is taking market share in both categories according to Mr Moir, with whom we are disinclined to argue. He also avers, if that’s the word, that his upper-crust punters are less affected by economic uncertainty and the credit squeeze coming into play at the lower end. And he is well chuffed with the promptitude with which Witchery has contributed to the profitability of the Group. 

Comment: If there were any doubts about the future of Woolies on the departure from day-to-day operations of Simon Sussman, they have probably been laid to rest.

Clicks, which has long believed in the potential of its role as a primary care provider, has just signed a landmark deal with the Western Cape government to provide immunisation, baby wellness and family planning services in 32 Clicks pharmacies across the province. These services will be free on a Thursday afternoon for customers with no medical aid and whose children were born in state hospitals, while at other times nominal fees will apply. Clicks will be springing for the appointment of private nurses to run the show, while the provincial government will provide free vaccines (to the tune of R3,500 per child up to 18 months) and contraception for cash-strapped mums. Over the past two years, Clicks has forked over R5million of its own running immunisations, in part to demonstrate the efficacy of the programme to the government. 

Comment: Primary health care is a globally-proven way of driving footfall in pharmacies. Nice one, Clicks.

More of those oddly-timed interims that are all the rage these days and made quite the splash at London Fashion Week. Pioneer this time, whose sales were up 12% to R6.82bn for the completely arbitrary four months to January 31, with volumes up an average of 3–5%. Corn flakes, dried fruit growing at 50% and biscuits at 18% were the star performers, although margins were squeezed with a lag in the recovery of input costs. Going forward (which is, after all, what pioneers do) recent investments in infrastructure should improve the old margin situation as the market makes its longed-for recovery. Looking at the divisional story, Bokomo volumes were up 6% while Ceres saw a decline in long-life beverages and single-digit growth in carbonated soft drinks.

Comment: Tough times out there, even for the big boys.

It’s a jungle out there, just ask any business looking for something to blame for sluggish growth in the annus so-so-us that was 2012. Latest in line was the World’s Biggest Food Business (TM), Nestlé, who reported that sales were up 10.2% to $100billion, with net profit up 11.5% to $11.5billion. Particularly disappointing was the performance in the previously stellar Asia, Oceania and African regions, where sales rose 8.4% to $20.5billion, down from 11.4% in 2011. On a more chipper note, Nestlé believe that they are on track to meet their key target of 5–6% of something called “organic growth”, having hit 5.9% in 2012. And in fairness, 10.3% of this came from Asia, Oceania and Africa, compared with 5.9% in the Americas and a fusty, doddering 2.4% in Old Europe.

Comment: Hang in there, everybody. Punters globally are about to get wealthy beyond your wildest imaginings. Maybe.

Coke. Burgers. Ketchup. These are a few of Warren Buffett’s favourite things, and when he likes something, he buys the whole business. Or a substantial chunk thereof. This time it’s ketchup, in the form of H.J. Heinz Co., which Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is planning on buying for a food industry record of $23.3billion, in a JV with 3G Capital, best known for putting together the Annheuser Busch InBev deal. The deal, according to Heinz, will give it the flexibility to respond to opportunities without the schlep of reports to shareholders baying for their quarterly $$$. Many of these opportunities will lie outside of the US, in markets very much like our own, which now account for 2/3rds of the beany one’s business. Berkshire will serve as financing partner of the business, with 3G doing the day-to-day.

Comment: A big deal. The biggest, actually, in the history of deals involving food and money, since Michael Cross bought the entire stock of cream donuts from the school tuckshop for R20.

Those Christmas tills rang neither merrily nor on high according to the greybeards over at StatsSA, who report phlegmatically that retail sales growth year-on-year for the month of December was down from 3.6% in November to 2.3%. The good news is that the bickerers and head-scratchers who congregate on something called the I-Net Bridge expected things to be even worse, with the consensus being that 1.5% was about the best we had the right to expect. “Today’s figures indicate that consumer spending‚ which is a key component of the economy‚ lost some momentum in the last quarter of 2012‚” said a Nedbank economist, although quite frankly, that could have been said by you, me or the fellow who comes in to look at the colour printer every six months or so. The fundis believe that consumer spending is likely to decelerate further in the tricky months ahead. 

Comment: What shape would a recovery take, we wonder. And what would drive it? It is fondly to be hoped that we will have the opportunity to find out before long.

Hint for brands: don’t put horsemeat in your spag. bol. if you wish to retain the admittedly hypocritical loyalty of punters who believe that the flesh of one exploited herbivorous quadruped is ethically superior to that of another. The breathlessly-named, and poorly punctuated YouGov’s BrandIndex has found, somewhat predictably, that something called the Buzz rating of Tesco has fallen to -32 odd index points since news broke that some of its private label products were “contaminated” with horse DNA. We are shocked, shocked! to discover etc.

According to leaked emails form Walmart’s VP of Finance and Logistics, the Big Feller has had the worst sales start to a month in seven years (into which period the years of the Great Decession squarely fall), a fact which the veep in question regards as nothing less than a “total disaster”. Beard tuggers over in the US of A believe that the slump might have something to do with an increase in payroll taxes and delayed payments of tax rebates. Although one might expect that these unfortunate circumstances would drive more, not fewer punters into the clutches of the world’s biggest value retailer…

Well this can’t be welcome news for the Ackermen. Turns out that Meikles, parent company of Pick n Pay’s Zimbabwean JV partner TM Supermarkets, may have donated a fleet of flashy 4x4s to ruling party Zanu PF for use in their election campaign later this year. Meikles may also be partnering the Zimbabwean government in its diamond mining operations. Tricky stuff, although everyone subject to Zim’s indigenisation policy may in a sense be said to be in a JV with Zanu PF.

Joining the prestigious list of CEOs who have flaunted their manly – and of course womanly – lycra-clad thighs in the name of fitness, competition and good, clean fun is none other than Sir Richard Branson, whose gingery extremities might be viewed toiling manfully during this year’s Pick n Pay Argus Cycle Tour.