Well, look at this. Freshstop has not only opened its 133rd forecourt store at Caltex service stations, but its very first brand, spanking, sparkling township store in Etwatwa, Daveyton, which if you didn’t know just happens to be one of the largest townships in Mzansi. The upgraded Caltex service station provides the ideal foreground for the new convenience store, replacing the old Starmart there, and offers passers-by a much wider variety of fresh produce and grocery items in double the floor space. And some of the items on offer will get anyone’s salivary glands going with roast chicken, beef stew, vetkoek and mince, bunny chows, pies, wraps and sandwiches on the menu and on the shelves.

Comment: Delicious, and congrats to Freshstop, the only South African C-Store to have been nominated in the Insight NACS International Convenience Retailer of the Year Awards. Good luck and make us proud!

Exciting news for the residents of Ibadan city in Nigeria, where Shoprite has opened a new store within the merged Cocoa and Heritage Malls. You would have thought Kanye West was in town, what with the throngs that poured into the new super around opening day. There was “mad human traffic” according to one of the shoppers and “queues all over the place” of people buying groceries, meat, notebooks, school items and even beans of locusts… no that can’t be right?… oh locust beans, that fruit pulp and seed extract providing a nutritious ingredient for traditional soups, sweetmeats and condiments across West Africa. It seems the store has brought much delight all round, with locals eager to take advantage of the new ‘one-stop’ shopping experience and even competitors saying that the market is big enough for everyone to benefit. In fact they believe the SA corporate will bring new punters, who previously did not venture there, to the retail hub.

Comment: Nice work Shoprite, but then that’s what we’ve come to expect from the Big Red One in Africa, isn’t it?

That brightly-named poultry business, Rainbow, will be changing its name to a much more formal TLA (three-letter acronym), viz. (that’s not an acronym, but an abbreviation) RCL Foods Ltd – and that’s where our lesson in parts of speech ends, now any questions? But back to the name change, which will only be formalised once shareholders approve of the resolution a month or so from now. Why change, you ask? Because Rainbow‚ which in April acquired a 64.2% stake in Foodcorp and upped its shareholding to 88.1% in July‚ said the new name would better reflect its vision as the ‘souped-up’ consumer focused business it hopes to become.

Comment: We’ll miss you Rainbow (the name), but we’re equally as excited about the prospects that a new food giant such as RCL might bring.

And in pharmaceutical news of truly gargantuan proportions, Adcock Ingram might just be bought out by CFR Pharmaceuticals, a Chilean-based company that is currently making a bid to acquire 100% of the SA company at a value of R12.9biljoens. And who are they, you ask? No small-fry drug development and distribution company, let us tell you. Founded in 1922, CFR now sells products in 23 countries, with 14 manufacturing facilities in Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Canada, the UK and Vietnam. What’s more, 70% of its shares reside in family hands, although it was listed on the Santiago Stock Exchange in 2011 to raise capital to grow in Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa, and of course Mars (well, not really, but who’s to stop them?). According to both parties, the deal would be a perfect fit, since both Adcock and CFR specialise in branded and generic medicines. The combined company would earn revenues of around R12.1billion (37% of which is generated by Adcock), enjoy a presence in 23 countries and employ over 10,000 people.

Comment: Now there’s a pharmaceutical giant in the making, if ever there was one.

US consumer goods company, P&G, has its sights squarely set on emerging markets, including the place we call home, on the basis that they (the emerging markets) “offer higher returns than developed markets today” thanks to their growing GDP (although some of us might beg to differ looking at our recent GDP performance). But P&G don’t seem to be too concerned about that, having grown their African business 10 times over in as many years and making plans to build a R1.6bn multi-category manufacturing plant in South Africa, which will also turn our Beloved Country into P&G’s manufacturing hub for the Southern and East African markets. What’s more, the plant will create 500 extra jobs in a location which is yet to be revealed. And the proof is in the washing powder – as you may have noticed, P&G launched flagship laundry brand‚ Ariel, in SA just this last May, going head to head with Unilever’s washing powder icon, OMO.

Comment: And more to come it seems. One doesn’t build a multi-billion rand plant for nothing, now does one?

Debt – we all know there is lots of it going round, but according to new micro lender wonga.com, SA’s consumers are not being completely negligent in their spending ways. In fact most of our debt comes from our inability to pay for emergency costs like broken down cars, burst geysers and that new Galaxy 4 that we just have to have (oh no wait…). As much as 79% of respondents said that their monthly salaries were enough to cover their daily expenses, even when taking into account fuel price hikes and inflation. It’s that blasted, popped radiator that causes people to take out the extra loans. So what do we make of all this? We need to learn to save people! Which is exactly what uncle Pravin has been saying these last couple of years or so anyway. And listen we should, when we see that in the last three months to June, South Africans saved just R72billion versus the R125billion we took out in loans.

Comment: Ouch

In a “precarious situation” – that’s how our Deputy Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene described our ailing economy, warning us all of the possibility of tax hikes in order to increase state revenue and hence economic growth. “Things are not going how we anticipated,” he says… “There is a negative impact on revenue collection,” he says. So what now? Well, it seems we will be adopting something called a “countercyclical fiscal stance” for the moment, where (in a hazelnut shell) we will let things lie for the mo, allowing our deficit to increase, only to tighten our belts again when the going gets good.

Comment: So no tax hikes just yet then, but don't say we didn't warn you when they do come round the bend.

For the first time in 118 years, SABMiller’s non-executive board will have not a single local-okal represented on it, following the resignation of Cyril Ramaphosa later this month. But never fear, because when it comes to the executives, we continue to dominate the ranks, led by chief exec Alan Clark, and another five South Africans on the 10-person strong board. Because it just wouldn’t seem right otherwise, now would it?

Last week we got rather excited about Choppies’ application to buy SupaSave in Botswana, but it seems that not everyone shared that sentiment. In fact a senior market analyst has slammed the decision by the Competition Authority saying the deal does not make any commercial sense. According to Roman Grynberg, Senior Research Fellow at the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis, the commercial logic of buying a failing business is lacking, and he, for one, would like some clarity on the matter, thank you very much.

Interesting move by the UK’s second largest retailer Asda (subsidiary of Walmart – wink, wink), which has appointed Global BPO Merchants to run its new customer care centre in Cape Town. The centre will employ 680 people by the end of 2013, with 250 new jobs dedicated to the Asda account. According to none other than Mrs Premier Helen Zille, the Mother City you see, is establishing itself as quite the destination for international BPO (that’s Business Process Outsourcing for you there at the back) services, an industry which can provide some much needed jobs, especially for the youth of our land.