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So Woolies’ sales were up 12.3% for the six months through December 2015, or 17.1% if you include the gains attendant upon the acquisition of depressingly-named Aussie retailer David Jones. Food grew nicely at 12.1%, with inflation of 5.7% and like-store sales up 5.8%, while clothing was not far behind at 11.7%. General Merchandise, an area with which The Dapper One is not immediately identified, was up only 5.8% though. But back, reluctantly, to Aus, where David Jones sales were up 11.2%, and the Country Road group of clothing brands grew 13.4% in dollar terms. And once more to the Beloved Country, where net retail space grew 9.8%, and shareholders are being promised returns of between 25 and 35% higher than they snaffled up for their shares in the first six months of the 2015FY.

Comment: Woolies’ unassailable position in the mid to upper LSMs continues to provide a measure of defence against the depredations of a tough economy.

Over at Shoprite, in the meantime, sales grew 8.8% for the Group, to R62.5bn for the six months through December, with South African supermarkets up just 7.2%. In mitigation, internal inflation was held down to 2.7%, indicating an aggressive drive to keep prices affordable for SA’s hard-pressed consumers. Like-store sales, in the meantime grew only 0.1%, indicating almost no growth at all. Analysts have also suggested that the numbers reflect the brutality of the recent price war between Shoprite and Pick n Pay, and might even indicate that the Ackermen are clawing back some of the market share they have lost to The Big Red One over the past five years or so. On the upside, strong seasonal sales saw an improved performance in the second quarter, and Whitey Basson remains sanguine about the prospects for growth elsewhere in Africa, the slowing of the Nigerian and Angolan economies notwithstanding.

Comment: Swings and roundabouts, ay.

Speaking of JVs which we will be shortly, Clicks has bought a 25% stake in the Sorbet business and have formed Sorbet Brands Pty Ltd, which will own all of the trademarks related to the Sorbet brand in these parts. Sorbet, as you are well aware is a nationwide chain of funky hair and beauty salons, which also offers a range of bath, body, waxing and nail care products through Clicks stores. Clicks now has an exclusive deal with Sorbet for the development and retail of these products.

Comment: A good deal for everyone concerned – for Sorbet, great distribution in a chain with a vastly superior footprint; for Clicks the credibility of a fresh young beauty brand which loyal punters won’t be able to get anywhere else.

In a world gone mad, there are still some cool things happening. Like the thawing of relations between the great nation of Cuba and the United States, a country to the north, which has long harboured an irrational animus against it. And even though this is not more than tangentially related to that, it’s especially cool that Dutch business Unilever will shortly be setting up shop in Cuba, investing $35million in a JV with local state-owned soap maker Suchel. Unilever-Suchel S.A. which the Dutch government is seeing as a means of securing pole position in that soon-to-burgeon economy, will be manufacturing such personal care brands as Sedal®, Rexona®, OMO®, LUX® and Close-Up®. Unilever and Suchel had a previous venture which folded in 2012.

Comment: Now, we are confident conditions are more propitious, and Le Grand Bleu will be rewarded for its confidence.

Since 2012, cocoa prices have climbed almost 40%, driven thither by declining production and increasing demand in newly-affluent countries like India and China. Cocoa trees, you see, prefer the shade of a rainforest canopy, and as much tropical rain as they can get. With deforestation and climate change, the supply of each of these is not what it was in Ghana. Enter Mondelez, a business with a more than passing interest in keeping those oddly bitter little beans coming in. Mondelez brings such brands to market as Cadbury and Oreo, and they are getting involved in educating cocoa farmers about their cocoa-growing practices – the correct spacing of the trees, how to prune them and what fertilisers to apply. Such programmes have yielded record crops in neighbouring Ivory Coast, and the thinking is that if all farmers got on-board, production could be up by as much as 300%.

Comment: Corporate sustainability initiatives have moved beyond the desire to do the right thing, into the territory of enlightened self-interest. This is where things get interesting.

Last week we tore somewhat unkindly into Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies, whom we blamed for the danger in which our trade privileges under AGOA found themselves. Not just unkind; also unfair: as friends of ours in the poultry industry have pointed out, Minister Davies and his team had been fighting a rear-guard action against pressure from the USA to agree to lower health, phyto- and zoo-sanitary standards, which could endanger the health of our national poultry flock, and of course that of the SA consumer. For example, the US was pushing for a clause to secure continued exports of poultry from those States/areas in the US that are not affected by a future outbreak of Avian Flu – important now that the US has a new outbreak of HPAI. Another made provision for supporting health certificates, as well as a “side letter” from the South African authorities clarifying our existing standards and procedures on Salmonella control. These and other provisions were the subject of intense negotiations over the festive season and into the early days of this year which were concluded to the satisfaction of all parties on the 6th of January, and signed into agreement on the 7th.

Comment: So, on the contrary, hard and necessary work by our government and industry associations, to limit the damage to our standards and serve the consumer.