We warned you and you didn’t listen and now they’re here. Botswana’s biggest supermarket chain has just opened its first hyperstore in these parts, in the old Checkers location in the Platinum Mall in Brits, Northwest. It’s 4,300m2 will allow Choppies the opportunity to expand more into non-foods, and the strategy is apparently to provide eager area punters in the LSM 3–7 bracket with as wide a range as possible then to trim it back using a process of trial and error. Among the attractions the new store offers are prepaid electricity and Lotto sales and a doughnut robot, which has proved very popular among local afficionados of starchy, sugary goodness. Choppies has a DC in Rustenburg, which enables swift replenishment and the aggressive pricing which has seen the group capture almost a third of the Botswana market.

Comment: Could this, at last, be the advent of the fabled Seventh Retailer? The portents are significant.

It is the aspiration of the Dapper One to possess the Soul of a Deli as they move more aggressively into supermarkets, we are told. Over the course of the next 18 months, Woolies will introduce over 2,000 new SKUs into the mix as they go after the better-heeled punter’s bigger shop. The strategy is also to open bigger stores: by 2014 they aim to have a third of their stores in the larger-format category; just two years ago, it was 10%. Bigger stores, apparently, send the signal to punters that they should push a trolley rather than lugging round a basket. Another signal that it is edging into Pick n Pay and even Checkers territory is the Daily Difference, a broadsheet available in store and in newspapers. But while they’re expanding their portfolio of brands, the core of the offering will remain the Woolies private label.

Comment: “It breaks my heart when I see a Pick n Pay trolley outside our store,” says Woolworths CEO Mr Moir, who is better known for driving his customised black A4 at breakneck speeds in exotic locales while being pursued by the Russian Mafia.

While retailer share prices hang on with their fingernails and economists talk of a slowdown, retail developments are counter-intuitively going great guns, with construction happening or scheduled for completion in 2014 on 11 new malls nationally, from the 12,000m2 toe in the turbid waters of Tugela Ferry to the 72,000m2 leviathan of Forest Hill City, Centurion. Of course, these properties could well cannibalise existing centres, so the race is on to upgrade. Rosebank, currently expanding from 37,000m² to 62,000m² at a cost of nearly a billion ront is a case in point. Some of the big drivers for this growth are the ongoing urbanisation of South Africa’s population, the continued growth of the middle class and its propensity to buy stuff, and the fact that local authorities have made more land available for development. 

Comment: Good news, one supposes, for those retailers who have complained these how many years about the paucity of appropriate sites for their emporia.

Rainbow, you will be relieved to know, have succeeded in raising the R3.9billion they were targeting in a rights issue undertaken to fund growth of The Feathery One. R1.037billion of this, you will recall, will be blown on the purchase of 64.2% of Foodcorp and thus the birth of a new leviathan of the South African food industry. But some will be dropped on interesting side projects – for example the purchase for R130million of 49% of ZamChick from ZamBeef of Zambia – part of Rainbow’s ongoing drive to diversify into other geographies (ahem) in the face of a challenging poultry market back home. The ZamChick acquisition will enable a smoother transition into markets like Kenya and Nigeria, the latter soon to be the biggest economy on a continent which prefers its chicken fried and plentiful. The rest of the wedge will be used to settle some of Foodcorp’s European debt, and on the expansion of the Zamchick brand.

Comment: Exciting times for a very exciting business whose shares we will be watching with some interest.

To us, of course, it’s the stuff that we add sparingly to the single malt of an evening. But to Clover and Nestlé it’s a great new business opportunity. The well-matched pair (milk and milk products, anyone?) have entered into an interesting business arrangement, which involves the purchase by Clover of the Nestlé’s Doornkloof manufacturing facility, as well as the rights to manufacture, distribute, market and sell their Nestlé’s Pure Life, Valvita and Schoonspruit brands of bottled water, and Nestea iced tea.  All of this for a cool, and indeed sparkling R58million, paid in kind by Clover in 30% of the shares in the new entity, Clover Waters. A great fit for Clover, who already market their own Aquartz water and Manhattan ice tea, and for Nestlé who see the deal as a more efficient route to a broader market for those brands.

Comment: Refreshing stuff, a deal of this nature. And water, so we are told.

The Organsation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has given South Africa a report card that has generously been called “mixed” after its third economic survey here. Citing our insanely high Gini coefficient, which shows that the top 10% of South Africans earn over 50 times more than the bottom 10%, a ratio worse than Brazil, the OECD avers that no significant progress has been made on income inequality since the end of apartheid. Pravin Gordhan begs to differ, but isn’t exactly emitting howls of rage, either, perhaps because they give our financial system a passing grade. But he does appear to believe that there have been improvements in the general wellbeing of the population. While the OECD point to initiatives like the National Development Plan and the New Growth Path, they are scathing on issues like corruption and an education system which does not prepare youth for the job market.

Comment: It’s the OECD’s mission to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. Certain governments (ahem) could take a leaf out of their compellingly-written book.

Consumer Confidence as measured by the gimlet-eyed number crunchers over at MasterCard has dropped sharply by 21.8 points to 48.0, compared to 69.8 just six months ago. This falls within the negative/neutral spectrum, and reflects a bruising six months behind and an uncertain six months ahead. Particularly worrying were the Quality of Life and Employment indicators, which recorded the sharpest declines.

After the news we were saddened to report last week, we didn’t think much could cheer us up. But there’s this: we might have kangaroo in our biltong, but at least we don’t have frogs in our salad, like they do in Australia. Well, like one punter did, anyway in a bag of salad from what passes for a Woolies in that sad southern wasteland. You can imagine the Australian twitter jokes: “You might of (sic) croaked it.” and “Would you say that you’re ...........hopping mad?”. The wit.