Pick n Pay’s reality-based 13 part TV series is currently in post-production as we lumberjack-shirted, bandanna-headed directors of photography like to say. The series, called Fresh Living, after the magazine by the same name, flights from September 6th and showcases a number of scenarios where a team of experts headed up by mean cook and gamine* beauty Justine Drake use their Pick n Pay Powers™ to sort out a range of domestic disasters. “While the show is aimed at providing simple, smart and affordable solutions to the kind of challenges that most South Africans can identify with,” says Mme Drake, “it also features that quintessential feel-good factor that connects us all as human beings.”
*Kind of like a blonde Audrey Tatou

Comment: There was a time when a grocer was a place you bought your veggies, cornflakes and Brasso, not an all-encompassing Multi-media, Lifestyle Brand. Not that we’re moaning or anything.

Not satisfied with selling reasonably-priced cabbages to local hawkers, the Joburg Market has taken things to the next level, allowing international customers to bulk order fresh produce online. This is a huge deal even for a business which calls itself The Largest Market in the World for Fruit and Vegetables. Phase 1 sees buyers able to view prices with gradings and sizes online and to choose their preferred shipping method, while phase 2 will see more of the same, only in French and Portuguese. More market info: the three sales halls on the site in City Deep are used for vegetables, fruit and potatoes and onions and measure a total of 65,000m², like Longmeadow. 55 cold rooms can accommodate 4,561 pallets of fresh produce, while 50 banana ripening rooms can handle 1,590 pallets of bananas at any one time. Producers are charged a small(ish) commission by Market agents who sell the produce to buyers.

Comment: How about them bananas?

Not hot news, exactly, rather one of those interesting illustrative items. Massmart has been operating elsewhere in Africa for 20 years and has 24 stores – all of them Games – in 11 countries, and intends to continue to open them at the current pace. These are stocked from South Africa, with, for example, Zambia receiving 5 containers a week brimful of goods sourced from 2,500 suppliers. The relevance? Africa is one hot ticket right now, just ask the Chinese. And things are hotting up among South Africa’s retailers there, too – Pick n Pay has finally thrown its cap into the ring and will be trundling down the well-worn track hacked from the virgin bush by Mr Basson with his pith helmet and bearers. And apart from stamina and bugspray, what all these jolly retail fellows are going to be needing is stonking great DCs back home to serve the African trade.

Comment: We’re having a little flutter on the boys who make forklifts and those giant metal shelf thingies, don’t know about you.

Woolies is the biggest contributor in one of the best bits of social business we’ve heard of in a long while. The Clothing Bank gets waste clothing – end of sale items, customer returns and bulk import rejections – and makes them available for resale by single, unemployed women, who get their first consignment on credit (hence the “Bank” bit) and thereafter pay. All manner of training and banking facilities are part of the deal, and while numbers are not out on how many women are involved, 70 are on the waiting list. Clothing to the estimated value of between R200 and R900million goes to waste every year in South Africa, and don’t get The Clothing Bank started on cracked homeware and tired computers.

Comment: Now we know where all the size 36 men’s trousers go...

Sales of brandhouse flagship Amstel (that’s the seriously inexpensive premium beer in the green bottle, if you’re a taverner) appear to have peaked, with market share declining each month from December to May – although across brandhouse’s total beer portfolio, sales have ticked up very nicely thank you, growing 36.7% in the three months to June. Heineken and Windhoek Draft – a bracing brew in a mysterious dark green bottle – have performed particularly nicely. For Amstel, one of those must win battles we hear so much about these days is the rate of return on empties – for every 100 quarts issued, 80-85 come home, whereas for rival SAB the number is a more impressive 98.

Comment: In the meantime, the Advertising Standards Authority Tribunal has found against brandhouse in 8 of its 9 claims against SAB relating to the volume vs price catfight covered in these crisp pages some time ago.

Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but Unilever South Africa has had a damned fine run of it over the difficult years of the Great Recession, when your grandmother and I had to tell the time by the same Rolex perpetual Date just three days running once .... where were we? Ah yes. Saw it coming, didn’t they, and scaled back their operation just in time. Starting in 2007, Chair Gail Klintworth starting dramatically slashing overheads, retrenching 40% of management, reducing the number of DCs from 27 to just 2, and generally rooting out the estimated R100million of wastage in the organisation. And then last year they froze all staff increases and management bonuses. Brrrr.

Comment: Don’t hold your breath on the impact to the bottom line though – the Big Blue very nicely passed a whacking 50% of the savings back to the consumer and invested the rest in building the brands.

Everything’s all going so well, then Russia catches alight. Next thing you know we’re back into food insecurity territory, because the kulaks over there grow endless prairies of wheat, all of it radioactive ash round about now. In fact the wheat shortage was looming before the whole place went up, as they’d had the worst drought in 130 years and already announced an export ban, the better to feed the comrades back home. That’s one to look out for. The other one is of course the humble spud, the harvest of which was brought low to the tune of 100,000 tons by abnormally heavy rains in the LP (that’s Limpopo), which will see shortages and price increases come month end. Potatoes are currently trading somewhat higher than usual at around R3.30/kg.

Comment: The inconvenient truth is coming to dinner...

Hurry along to our Feature Article on ECR here and have your say about why collaboration in non-competitive areas is the best thing to happen to the industry since Mr Procter met Mr Gamble, or why it will cause us all to go to the Competition Commission in a handbasket. Thing is, you see, we’ve added this devilishly clever comments facility to our site, and we’d love to hear what our readers have to say on a range of issues.

Coke has entered Zimbabwe’s energy drinks market with a brand called ‘burn’, launched through its partnership with Zim’s Delta Beverages. Feel free to insert your own droll comments about white-owned farms, piles of billion dollar bills and Robert Mugabe’s facial hair here, or indeed here. Thank you. Sir is most amusing.