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The internet is going absolutely wild this week over Woolies’ latest bit of alleged plagiarism, with some purse-lipped designer from Cape Town alleging on her blog, for all the world to see and then posting it on their Facebook wall, that The Dapper One ripped off her design for a hummingbird cushion cover, and didn’t give her the order she was hoping for. Every designy person in the country then liked and reposted the sorry tale, and Woolies, who like to position themselves in the social media space, ahem, had to get all explanative about it. Problem is, the hummingbird Woolies did use bore little resemblance to her hummingbird – which itself bore a troubling resemblance to an existing copyrighted photo.

Comment: Designers will rip off whatever they stumble upon, and will in turn be ripped off by buyers who like what they see but don’t necessarily want to fork out for it. Perhaps if everyone exercised a bit of originality in the first place, we wouldn’t be here, and yet here we are. Has anyone ever thought of doing a cushion cover featuring our very own greater double-collared sunbird, every bit as gorgeous as the hummingbird? Thank you Woolies, that’ll be R13.23 upfront and a risibly small percentage of the profits.

In a startling departure from the culture of cordial dislike and snide aside which characterizes the competition between our large retailers, Shoprite have (in effect) taken Massmart to court, lodging an urgent interdict to challenging the legality of a Game moving into the CapeGate mall. The Big Red One, you see, has an agreement with owner Hyprop Investments which prevents any other supermarkets (except Pick n Pay and Woolies) from operating in either groceries or liquor in the same centre. With Game having rolled out their Foodco offering in September, Shoprite believe this puts them in violation. Massmart believe that Shoprite are misreading the letter (if not the spirit) of the agreement, and have put the matter to the Competition Commission (against whom, you will recall, they were latterly railing on the subject of the Wakro deal). Young Mr Pattison has cheekily asked how Whitey Basson can be against protective tariffs for manufacturing, but is averse to robust competition in shopping centres. At time of going to press the Court had found in Shoprite's favour but Massmart was going to take it on appeal.

Comment: So what oppresses the Whitey brow, as he stands there on the terrace overlooking the vines, swirling the pinotage and contemplating all that he has wrought? Now we know.

After the recent unpleasantness with the spurious shares and the expired food, things have hotted up once again for Shoprite in Zambia, where the Big Red One recently fired 3,000 striking workers, with the option of re-employment, (after two warnings, it must be said), and now the Zambian government is issuing less-than-veiled to throw them out altogether, on the ground that Shoprite may have been within their rights, and all that, but that isn’t how we do things around here. At issue, apparently, is the minimum wage that Shoprite and the National Union of Commercial and Industrial Workers (NUCIW) has thrashed out between them, and which the workers (and now apparently the government) consider insufficient given Shoprite’s status as the Biggest Show in town. At time of press, both parties were still rumbling, the workers were still kicking their heels and Shoprite’s 30 stores were still open.

Comment: A possible case of the tall business syndrome, where Shoprite represents everything that is multinational – the arrogance, the profits, the otherness. A tricky situation to negotiate.

Your grannies favourite shop DisChem has been given the go ahead by the Competition Tribunal to enter into a joint venture with Minlou Holdings, a wholesaler which supplies pharmaceuticals to around 400 outlets, including DisChem. The issue was that some rival pharmacies feared that DisChem would with this deal be in a position to assume control over the Leading Pharmacy franchise – over which the JV does indeed give it some control – and thus smoke the competition. The Comish has established that enough independent pharmacies are holding on by their fingernails for this not to be the case.

Comment: A big move for DisChem, giving it more vertical integration in the old supply chain, no doubt, and allowing it to bring those under and over the counter goodies to your gran at a price she’s happy to pay.

Pioneer Foods are taking a presumably unintentional leaf out of the Pick n Pay book and embarking on a major retrenchment of middle to senior management, as a means of reducing the wage bill to “increase competitiveness and enhance profitability.” 1200 employees are to be axed, for want of a better word, three times the Pick n Pay figure. Pioneer had run the numbers and found that the positions were surplus to operational requirements. This – trend is not the right word, not yet, development is being described by analysts as a sinister harbinger of a coming recession – these are after all the drivers of growth in a business, and the spenders of money at the tills.

Comment: Devastating stuff, for the individuals and businesses concerned, and for our industry, which is small enough to feel like a family sometimes.

In Ghana, Cadbury have launched the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, an initiative that aims to increase cocoa yields through improved farming methods, as well as helping farmers supplement their income with complementary crops, and supporting local communities in the areas of education and overall wellbeing. This in an attempt obviously to do the right thing, but also to bring under control the soaring price of cocoa, which has risen 20% since the beginning of the year. Part of the problem is a geriatric workforce, as young people head to find penury and disappointment in the cities rather than staying on the farm, and the farms themselves tend to be tiny and inefficient – 75% of Ghana’s farms are 2ha and smaller.

Comment: By no means the full story. But, we think, a fascinating glimpse into a rich, dark industry.

Retail trade sales were up by a suspiciously buoyant 3% for the month of August YOY, compared with 2.8% in July, after a panel of beard-tugging Jeremiahs in the shabby purple robes of the Order of Economists had predicted a decline in the rate of growth to around 1.3%, citing increasing household debt and a sharp decline in the number of unsecured loans on offer – which will have hit the consumption of durables and semi-durables particularly hard. And don’t forget the old consumer confidence index, which you will recall has also tanked somewhat lately. But now this. Who the heck knows what this portends.

Comment: This just goes to show that predicting what the spectacle-polishers over at StatsSA are going to say next is a mugs game.

Nampak has announced the appointment as CEO designate Mr. André de Ruyter, who has latterly occupied the posish of senior group executive of global chemicals and North American operations over at Sasol. Focus for the new chap will be making the SA operation more robust as margin and production volumes come under pressure, we are told.

“Christo Wiese does not pay a lot of tax’” says Christo Wiese, and we’re quoting verbatim here. “But Christo Wiese does nothing,” he goes on, which sounds like a win/win where only one person is winning. But then he goes on to elucidate: “Everything I do is done through companies, and those companies are among the top five taxpayers in the country.” Fair enough.