Those maiden Dis-Chem results, as we hoary old hands of the good ship JSE like to say: turnover up 14.7% to R17.3bn, with like store sales up 9.1%, and operating profit positively vertical at 24.3% to R1.1bn and retail margin increasing 0.4%. That should put the wind up Cap’n Kneale and his crew of stalwarts over at Clicks, eh? Mind, you, Dis-Chem’s got a ways to go before it has the footprint of an outfit like Clicks: just 108 stores and counting, although Mr Salzman has a plan to get that to 200 in the next two years. Being an old privateersman, and cagey about sharing his thoughts with the yellow-teethed denizens of the analysts’ pen, he’s not saying exactly how he plans to get there. Probably not greenfield growth says the analysts, so chances are Dis-Chem and Clicks will be scrapping over existing independent pharmacies for years to come. Of note also are the results of Dis-Chem’s wholesale arm, CJ Distribution, with a 22.2% increase in turnover YOY, new warehouses in Durban and Delmas and a Cape Town one currently in completion.

Comment: And with the share price up 40%, don’t we wish we’d managed to climb aboard when they listed.

Hot on the heels of Clicks and Dis-Chem is SPAR, which with 82 pharmacies already in place and 36 in the pipeline, plus a whole bunch of franchisees just champing at the bit to jump in, is positioned to take the number two slot sometime soon. They say that once they get to 140 stores they’re going to emulate the other two and open up a distributorship. And they really are not being shy about all of this, targeting 300 to 400 stores in the next five, although they say they would be happy with just 250 really good ones. They’re also getting into through-the-line healthcare with their first clinic opening in Stanger in a couple months and more doubtless to follow. The interesting thing about the SPAR move is that the challenge to Clicks and Dis-Chem, and of course along with Pick n Pay and Shoprite who are operating in this space, comes with the added dimension of grocery retail, a model that works well with such players as Walgreens and CVS in the US, a market not dissimilar from our own. 

Comment: Go, SPAR. With Pick n Pay and Shoprite already in the fray, the hunt for personal care ‘lipstick index’ impact and higher margin on front shop items, continues.

Doing the right thing by the smaller supplier this week is the Dapper One, aka Woolies and i.e. Woolworths, who have teamed up with the Department of Trade and Industry (dti shurely shome capsh - ed) and the Independent Development Corporation (IDC) to support the opening of the new K9 Pet Foods’ factory in the Cape. K9 is owned by a team of three women headed up by founder Fazielah Allie and has partnered with Woolies to supply the retailer with its own brand canned and pouched pet food. Armed with the agreement to supply Woolies, K9 was able to secure R20 bar from the dti’s Black Industrialist’s Incentive Scheme and an extra 30-odd from the IDC. Couple of slabs of cement, some steel girders and a roof, and you have yourselves a factory. Nicely done. 

Comment: K9 already employ 32 local staff; more will surely follow. That’s how you grow an economy.

A couple years ago, you will recall, Oceana Brands acquired on the Tiger Brands and Brimstone coin a US fishery by the name of Daybrook, and not knowing much about the pelagic industry that side of the Atlantic, we pretty much said “hmph!”, reported it dutifully and went about our business. Now, it turns out that Daybrook was a pretty good investment, with interim revenue up 12% to $52m, and operating profits up 23% to $15.4m. Oceana is sitting pretty. Well, pretty-ish. There are some doubts about the fishing rights the business will be allocated in SA, whence it draws 20% of its revenue. A third comes from the canned pilchards operation, which is quota-proof and another third from Daybrook, which has fishing rights for the next 50 years off the coast of Louisiana. And Oceana’s empowerment credentials should stand it in good stead for local rights too.

Comment: So all sorted then, while there are still fish to be had in the sea. Oh, wait…

For those CEOs who believe that the bottom line is single, not triple, and that if you take care of business the world can take of itself, there’s this: products made sustainably to some degree have, on average, 4% higher sales than those which aren’t. And if you don’t want to take it from CECP, a New York asset-management outfit which produced this factlet, take it from the punters. Increasingly, consumers – particularly younger ones – are looking for safe, healthy products and care about the sustainability of what they purchase. And if you’re worried about your talent pipeline, they also prefer to work for companies that share these values. But hang about – why are we headlining this story with the name of an obscure New York asset manager? CECP, as it turs out, was founded by Paul Newman and a whole bunch of other actor/CEOs (in fact some of them might have been just regular old CEOs) and CECP reckon that SA is way ahead of the US  when it comes to the execution and reporting of corporate social responsibility.  And their head of strategic investments was talking at a recent summit aiming to strengthen collaborative partnerships between business, civil society and government.

Comment: Something which has been close to our hearts these how many years?

OK, so there was the rand’s 3% decline to the dollar this week, despite the dollar being the currency of a nation now run by (insert tired something orange something man baby trope here). But otherwise, things are not looking as bad as might be expected, if you listen to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). That august collection of natty suits and clever spectacles has let it be known that it expects SA’s growth to reach an admittedly less than stellar 1% this year, up from their earlier forecast of 0.8%. This on the expectant that the lifting of the drought will boost agricultural production and a rise in commodity prices will give the mining sector a much-needed shot in the arm. There’s also a good chance that inflation will slide below the 6% upper limit of the Reserve Bank’s targeted band. 

Comment: 1%? After the 0.3% we managed last year, we’ll take it.

In case we didn’t manage to convince you with our sustainability and CSI bit just a few inches to the north, there’s also this: Unilever’s Sustainable Living brands grew over 50% faster than the rest of the business last year, delivering more than 60% of Unilever’s growth in 2016 and taking up 18 slots in the top 40 Unilever brands, up from 12 in 2015. Put that in your … oh, never mind.

In a complete and utter miscarriage of justice, it has been found in an EU court that Kit-Kat’s distinctive shape does not constitute a trademark. The evidence, says the court, doesn’t show sufficiently convincingly “that the consumer would perceive the bars in the basket as originating from Nestlé and not from others.” Well, to be frank, we didn’t have a clue who made Kit-Kat bars. But we know only too well what they feel like shortly before you polish them off in one sitting.