“South Africa’s retail culture is a brutal business.” Don’t take it from us, take it from a “leading industry figure” in Australia, who was bemoaning the removal from office of Ian Nairn, CEO of underperforming Woolies’ acquisition David Jones. He is being replaced by John Dixon, ex-of Marks & Spencer in the UK, from which he resigned some months ago, leading the Aussies to clutch further pearls about the perfidy of foreign businesses. “You don't often see someone doing a pretty good job get removed,” said another commentator. Word on the street is that Een Neen, as he’s known in Australian, and Woolies CEO Een Moyah didn’t exactly see oy to oy. The move was so sudden, complained another sodden-tissued insider, that David Jones didn’t even have time to pull their Caulfield Cup invitations with Nairn’s name on them.

Comment: Whatever the Caulfield Cup is. Like we care.

Another slow news week for our retailers, and we don’t have the appetite for yet another bleeding Choppies story (Botswana Supermarket Makes Good! Alright already, we get it!) so there’s this: Pick n Pay’s share prices declined by 8% at some point last week, the most it has dropped since April, which analysts say is either because retail is tough right now (inflation debt unemployment something something despite lower fuel prices something else Eskom) or that the share has done better than competitors have this year, picking up 18% where, for example, Shoprite has declined 8.4%, so what you’re seeing is happy punters taking profit by flogging a few on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (or JSE, as we pin-striped insiders call it.)

Comment: So, that happened, as you “millennial hipsters” are inexplicably fond of saying these days.

Excellent work from The Big Red One, who announced last week that over 400 deaf and hearing-impaired people have found positions within the Group over the past six years in the retailer’s Decade of the Deaf Project in partnership with Employ and Empower Deaf (eDeaf) and our good friends the Wholesale & Retail SETA, who together, have trained the candidates in 13 different skills programmes. One of the more heartening aspects of the endeavour (and there are many) is its coaching capacity building programme in which deaf employees from previous intakes are trained to coach the new intake of deaf learners, and all stores are sensitised in communicating with deaf staff members.

Comment: Deafness can be a lonely and frustrating row to hoe. A project like this one demonstrates that it need not be.

Recently-listed Rhodes Food Group is on something of a tear these days, raising R600 million on the JSE, buying Bull Brands, Pacmar, Deemster Pickles and Boland Pulp, fighting off the Competition Commission, turning in a tidy set of post-listing results, and generally carrying on like a strapping and well-connected young Englishman at the very apogee of the Empire. Now they’ve snapped up the South African operations of globetrotting baker General Mills, and in so doing are adding muffins, croissants, cookies and pizza to the already impressive portfolio of packaged convenience goodies it brings to a grateful market. Rhodes you will recall has an exclusive agreement to supply Woolies with ready-made meals and pies, and appears to be gunning for the likes of AVI and Pioneer as it grows organically and through acquisition.

Comment: After over a century in the South African market, the recent rise of Rhodes is a heartening and inspiring development.

A big week for Coca-Cola. They’ve announced that you will shortly be able to brew the brown and sticky, like some Heisenberg of the cold beverage, in the comfort of your own home, with a machine by coffee-capsule kings Keurig. Single shot servings only, sorry, but other variants will include Sprite, Dr. Pepper and flavoured seltzer waters. So that’s number one. Number two, Coke have cut their funding for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, which was established to prove (inter alia, no doubt) that sugary beverages don’t make you fat, lack of exercise does. The sponsorship rather than boosting Coke’s case among consumers, backfired rather as a PR exercise. It’s also changing the label on vitaminwater (to include some proper punctuation) to ensure it’s making no misleading health claims. But finally, in some truly cheering news, it has joined co-FIFA sponsor McDonald in calling for the head of ruling thief Sepp Blatter.

Comment: Bit of spring cleaning then. Good if belated governance.

Try as it might, our government does not have “a good story to tell” (thanks Mr President) about the economy right now, as evinced by Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene’s warning this week that his earlier forecast of an admittedly still dismal GDP growth of 2% for the year might have to be a teensy bit downgraded. Although he didn’t say by how much. So what does a government do for hope? What every major South African business is doing, it seems: looking north. In the same week as Nene was pronouncing direly, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies was waxing chipper about how grand it is that we’re investing so much money elsewhere in Africa. Investment in Africa is important for South African companies, he says, as the domestic market is too small on its own to sustain high rates of economic growth over the long term.

Comment: That’s great! Oh, wait, it’s not.

Plucky although massive independent pharmacy chain Dis-Chem are about to go where people have been begging them to venture for years – cap in hand to the Johannesburg Securities Commission (JSE) there to flog their shares on the open market, in order, one assumes, to fund some capital for expansion perhaps (and we speculate here) to look into new store formats and go more directly head-to-head with rival Clicks. We’ll keep you posted.

A couple weeks ago we reported the truly brilliant news that the Woolies snake – that insidious corral arrangement that funnels punters to the tills, there to be fleeced of their hard earned – was shortly to be divested of its sweets and chocolates, rendering it less tempting to tots and husbands alike. It appears that the swiftness of the impending move was overstated, and it will take some months, starting with the larger format stores. Gummy snakes, gu…meee… snakes…

TOPS in Hillcrest, KZN, has on occasion been our go-to place for unusual beer. Now, we’re told, it’s upped it game, stocking the largest variety of South African craft beer in a single fridge. And this collection, we are told, includes some of this gorgeous stuff from some old friends of ours.