Rocky times for Shoprite in Namibia, or “Nambia” as the most powerful man in the world likes to call it. The Namibian Labour Ministry has gathered what it is ominously calling a “dossier” on Shoprite’s labour practices, highlighting that fact that 42% of the workforce there are classified as “permanent part-time employees” and don’t enjoy the same wages or benefits as permanent staff. The ministry demanded a meeting with the um, board of directors and shareholders in April, Shoprite counter-offered with a meeting with the Namibian leadership or alternatively a face-to-face with the board sometime in May – an offer the ministry rejected. And now, it seems, things have come to something of an impasse. “You must remember that we are the State and we are not a banana republic,” rumbles permanent secretary in the labour ministry Bro-Matthew Shinguadja ominously.

Comment: And no one is suggesting you are. But good luck getting anything operational out of a board of directors. Shoprite, for its part, might do well to embark on an aggressive PR campaign in some of the territories where incursion by powerful South African enterprises is not universally considered a good thing.

Czesc, przyjaciel, and a jolly dzien dobry to you and yours! That’s right, as you’ve guessed by now, SPAR South Africa is embarking on one of its foreign adventures, this time to Poland, where it is rumoured to have its eye on a controlling stake in charmingly-named local retailer Bac-Pol. Not a done deal by any means though – SPAR is still battling somewhat with traction in Switzerland and Ireland, in both of which territories sales dropped last year. Although (and this speaks well of the long term) SPAR has made strides in distribution in these new geographies. Poland may also represent an opportunity in this regard. To be clear, of the potential acquisition, Mr O’Connor has this to say: “It would not be appropriate at this time to further speculate on any such transaction.”

Comment: And we here at the Tatler are nothing if not entirely appropriate. Still, Poland, eh? Where one day it might share companionable vodka with Shoprite, if our memory serves us.

Freshstop, which – fun fact – is the South African retailer with the most consecutive consonants in its name, is launching takeaway food brands hand over fist in order to also be the South African retailer with the most number of stores within its stores. Thus Hot Dog Bar and flame-grilled chicken outfit Africaz join the existing food lines, Crispy Chicken, Grill to Go, Hooked On Fish, Doughnut Delite and Biltong Bars in the already, shall we say, bustling confines of the average Freshstop forecourt store. Crispy Chicken is of course the biggy; Freshstop has 41 Crispy outlets in its store nationally, and plans to open another ten or so this year. Grill to Go, on the other hand, has just ten outlets, while Africaz is open in only 5 KZN stores so far.

Comment: An interesting model, which must keep the branding agency both happy and busy. So many brands! So much busyness!

Aspen Pharmacare’s infant formula business is the subject of a great deal of interest these days, with Reckitt Benckiser and Perrigo expressing interest recently and French dairy group Lactalis and Australia’s iNova Pharmaceuticals also apparently lining up. Aspen has already sent particulars to Chinese outfits Beingmate Baby & Child Food, Health & Happiness H&H International and Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, making for a crowded and very cosmopolitan field. Word on the street is that such a deal could fetch in the order of $1-1.5bn, although Aspen, with as fine a display of corporate poker face as we’ve seen, have indicated that they’re more than willing to hold onto their portion should the offers not prove satisfactory. Formula, you will recall, has been the Trojan horse, as it were, for Aspen’s drive into the Chinese market.

Comment: Sounds like a nice problem to have there Aspen.

All sorts of fishy dealings going on this week. Premier Fishing and Brands, to kick it off, has just acquired a 50.3% stake for R85m in the Talhado Fishing Group, and landed a pleasing set of interims, with operating profit up +14% to R20m. Over in the US, Oceana, through its Daybrook Fisheries business, just received a R161m tax windfall courtesy of the Republicans’ gimmicky tax gift to businesses on behalf of future generations of debt-laden Americans, oh sorry, perhaps that didn’t come out right. Although Daybrook’s going great guns in its own right, with record landings of Gulf menhaden, the species used for fish oil and meal. Finally, back here on our own tempestuous shores, big fishing players Sea Harvest and Brimstone, and Old Mutual’s Masisizane Fund have committed to the establishment of a R100m fisheries development fund for the transformation of the industry.

Comment: Now if we could only deal with the tricky matter of dwindling fish stocks, we’d be laughing.

The Northern Region Business Association, based in KZN, has warned foreign traders in Inanda, Ntuzuma, KwaMashu and Pheonix that they have 14 days to leave those locations, or else… Xenophobia is once again on the rise in the Beloved Country, and hardworking shopkeepers, particularly Somalis, are its first convenient target. Writing in the Business Times, Ferial Hafferjee refers, perhaps just a touch xenophobically herself, to ”wily” traders who drive their “pimped 4x4s like the drivers of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid”. She tuts that local traders have been “wiped out by the better skills and smarts of the foreign traders who use group buying, marketing and merchandising as well as credit extension to quickly take over.” To be clear: these are immigrants from a sparsely-resourced, frequently drought-stricken war zone, practicing business competently and bringing prices and convenience to shoppers who want them. And they’ve got guts to spare.

Comment: Perhaps our local businesses would do well to learn from these enterprising people, rather than shutting them down and worse.

So the Competition Commission has given the nod to Pioneer Foods for its acquisition of the 50.1% of Heinz Foods South Africa which it does not already own – a transaction which remained in some doubt as recently as last week. The Commission has stipulated that the merger should cost nothing more than 27 jobs over the next two years.

Well the self-checkout experiment is going very well over at Tesco and also Sainsbury’s, where they’ve been compelled to install CCTV cameras as a precaution against shoplifting. They’ve both also seen off advances by Amazon, which approached them severally to sell their merch on the global megasite and future of all human interaction. Also in the UK, Britain’s Muslims, or a presumably representative sample thereof, believe that businesses are not doing enough to tap into the £200m Ramadan economy. Perhaps South Africa’s Muslims are of the same belief?