Taking a leaf from the Big Massmart Book of Underpromises this week is Clicks, who inform us they expect headline earnings for the full year to August, which seriously doesn’t seem to be just around the corner now does it but just you wait and see, to rise just 5-10%. This, they say, is because it’s tough out there, because selling price inflation is unlikely to help them along much and that cost pressure on their business will stay high as they continue to roll out pharmacies. For the six months to February, sales rose 11.4% to R8.5billion while something called net income rose 9.8% to R360million. If you happen to be a punter, however, you’ll still be getting your dividend, won’t you, and it’ll be up 10% to 48.5c per share.

Comment: A good thing that this minor hiccup has not halted the successful rollout of pharmacies.

Two strategic appointments at The Big Blue, one of which we hinted at obliquely a couple of weeks ago. Joining Pick n Pay from Shoprite, where he was merchandise director, is Gerhard Ackermann, just one consonant away from being part of the family. Mr Ackermann, joining the planning department, will be working with CEO, Richard Brasher and food merchandise director, Peter Arnold on beefing up the old price and promotional strategy, an area where Shoprite has probably held the edge for a while. Gustave Moller, who joins Pick n Pay from – uh, oh – Shoprite, will also be working in the planning department, where he will focus on format development plans, no doubt bringing his hefty experience in emerging markets to bear.

Comment: To lose one is an accident, to lose two is just plain careless...

In a world… (cue ominous kettle drums)… where two big businesses own 99% of the local beer market… (add some sinister strings)… the little guys are about to fight back… (brave, brassy horns). Seriously, Brandhouse and SAB, the latter still benefitting from that long-standing monopoly, are seeing their market share chipped away (albeit indiscernibly) at the margins by the rise of the microbrewery, here as elsewhere. Growth among the little guys is doubling YOY, and as Joburg awakens to the joys of something brewed by hand, the centre of gravity of the nascent industry is likely to swing from the Cape to its more natural home up north.

Comment: The inevitable result of the rise of the microbrew is a wave of acquisitions by the big guys, looking to gain market share and a bit of that homebrewed credibility among serious aficionados of the once-uniformly-amber liquid.

P&G has the inestimable advantage of owning a big stake in two categories where you really hate spending your hard-earned but unless you’re a thickly-bearded hippie who loves doing the laundry you have no choice: razor blades and disposable diapers. This is surely one of the reasons that its quarterlies rose above expectations to $20.7bn in sales, marginally up on last year’s performance. Profits were up to $2.56bn, also slightly up on last year. So productivity is up, sales are up, market share was up, and cost-cutting programmes are starting to bear fruit. Flushed with confidence, they’re planning to buy back $6bn worth of their own stock.

Comment: No rocket science, then, just a great business getting on with the business of earning its keep for shareholders.

Coca-Cola is putting its money where its Youthful Global Lifestyle Urban Streetwise Fun-loving Brand Positioning is, by replacing some of its more senescent board members in the next round of voting. Coke, you see elected nine septuagenarians out of a possible 17 positions to its board in 2012. Two of the current members – Mr Donald Keough and Mr James Williams – not standing for re-election, are over the age of eighty. By contrast, newcomer Helen Gayle, chief executive of the humanitarian group CARE, is a mere slip of a girl at 57. And Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent is a strapping young buck of just 60. However, the average age on Coke’s Board is 67, compared with an average of 62.6 on the S&P Top 500. Rival Pepsi has no board members over the age of 70.

Comment: Which come to think of it might be a good reason to keep dad around the house a bit longer.

The CPI for the month of March came in a touch better than the predictions of economists who like sports columnists and ancient Mayans never seem to be held to account for the quality of their prognostications. At 5.9% it was unchanged YOY, climbing 1.2% month-on-month compared with 1% in February. The reason for this was lower-than-expected food inflation, which fell to 5.7% YOY for March compared with 6.1% in February, declining by 0.1% from February to March. Now the economists, flushed with their signal lack of success at ever getting anything right, are predicting that food inflation will remain under 10% for the rest of the year. Upward pressure in March came mainly in transport, with an increase of 2.7% month-on-month after the fuel price hike, and education – an annual bump as books and uniforms are bought – was up 9%.

Comment: A glimmer of good news, though, for our chronically-strapped consumer base and the businesses who serve them.

Le Grand Bleu grew sales by 4.9% for the three months to March, a touch below analysts’ expectations of 5.6%. A dip in sales to the tune of 3.1% in the strife-torn and economically-troubled region of Europe is chiefly to blame, although its growth in Latin America and Asia continues to outperform rivals.

Manufacturers of dodgy meat products – and even the retailers who hawk them – could face fines of – get this R20,000, or six months in prison for a first offence, and R80,000 for a second. This will provide a powerful disincentive to those businesses who are fond of corralling kangaroos for the purposes of turning them into genuine South African beef. Hang on a sec – oh, no, actually it won’t.