Look, nobody loves a big, listed supermarket chain like we do. Have a look at our website – you’ll see what we mean. But we do have to confess a penchant, as it were, for the smaller operator, too. And according to the Competition Commission’s Grocery Retail Market Inquiry, small and independent retailers are struggling as the chains have extended their dominance to non-urban areas. The Comish has determined three areas of particular concern: the use of long-term, exclusive lease agreements and the exercise of buying power by the national supermarket chains; the inability of small and independent retailers to adapt to a changing competitive environment; and the shortage of pro-competitive regulations aligned with the convenience model associated with small retailers. “This fundamentally undermines the objectives of the Competition Act and the broader national interest,” they say. As a start, it has recommended that long-term exclusive lease agreements between mall owners and big retailers cease with immediate effect and be phased out within three years.

Comment: What does this mean? Retailers have been given a month to comment, and comment, no doubt, they will.

Big up to FreshStop, who just last week celebrated their first decade in the forecourt convenience sector. They hit another milestone in March, opening their 300th store since that first one in the sand-swept wastes of Table View. And that’s not all: the business, an offshoot of Fruit & Veg City, remains SA’s fastest-growing convenience retailer, and also the biggest, with sales of just over R2bn in 2018. It’s also been good for the little guy: franchisees who have converted to the FreshStop brand have seen turnover growth of +60% since making the move, and FreshStop employs over 3,000 people. What’s next? FreshStop Director Joe Boyle: “With our larger national footprint, we are focusing more on logistics and distribution, and support services such as IT, alongside developing technologies and keeping the relationships we have with our suppliers strong.” Innovation, too: the brand that brought you Crispy Chicken, Grill to Go, Hooked On Fish and Chips, Hot Dog Bar, Doughnut Delite, and Seattle Coffee outlets in stores has recently kicked off the FreshStop Diner concept, and it’s going gangbusters.

Comment: Here’s to the next ten.

David Jones has a creative agency called Maud, and that’s pretty much all you need to know about that. Perhaps one day it will make an honest branding agency out of Maud, and we will call it Maud Jones. Anyway, we digress. Slightly. Bottom line is, just like any business in trouble, David Jones are playing blame the agency, and are reviewing their Aus$25m media account, currently run by Carat, with whom relations have apparently broken down irreparably. But not so irreparably that they aren’t going to make a go of it until Christmas. Maud came on board late last year, as did the retailer’s content agency (online stuff), Medium Rare, which as we understand it, is an expression meaning half-cooked. They also took a chunk of their “creative capabilities” in house, which also generally means the house is on fire.

Comment: Oi Woolies. Mate. Do yourself a favour. Get out while the going’s still OK-ish.

Tesco, after a rough couple of years, are going back to basics to win back the punters, slashing their prices on fruit and veg by up to an (oddly specific) 61%. It’s attempting to beat down the threat from German rivals Aldi and Lidl, whose fruit and veg generally go for +60% cheaper than the market, respectively. Of course, that’s not what Tesco are saying. What they’re saying is, they’re making it “easier and cheaper for you to make healthy choices.” Anyway, having laid waste to the fruit basket of Blighty, Aldi are now scarpering off to China, where they are told there is a bob or even a pfennig to be had. Aldi’s private label proposition is an untested quality in the Middle Kingdom, where brands are, ‘erm king. And so to Walmart, which are launching some kind of a part-AI, part human online personal shopping service in cities in the US, invite only right now, very high-end, and so downright scary that they’ve called it Jetblack.

Comment: One day, the last cashier in the world will hang up her pinafore and peak, and go home. And Walmart will be happy. This is literally the dinosaurs inviting the asteroid in for a cuppa.

Tongaat Hulett is a business built on the crusty propriety of Old Natal. It’s moved on since then, to become a dashing property magnate among other things, but it’s still more than a little shocking to hear that there may have been a bit of fiddling with the numbers in recent days. They’ve just announced in a tortuously-worded statement that “past practices, which are of significant concern” seem to have “resulted in financial statements that did not reflect Tongaat Hulett’s underlying business performance accurately.” The dodgy numbers may lead Tongaat to reduce the equity on its balance sheet by between R3.5bn and R4.5bn, or about a third of the value of the business. The overstatement in question appears to relate to property sales in the declining years of ex-CEO Peter Staude’s tenure.

Comment: Sad. New CEO Gavin Hudson has his work cut out for him, in a sector which already has more than its fair share of challenges.

Our days of driving up to Sparkport Pharmacy through the rain on a Sunday night to buy formula are long over, but we still feel a pang of bittersweet nostalgia when we read about goings-on in the infant milk business. (You’re scratching. Ed) Where were we? Ah yes. In a move which will provide some measure of relief to the punter nervously eyeing the sea of red ink on the Aspen balance sheet, they’ve managed to sell their infant milk business to French outfit Lactalis, injecting a wholesome €740m into a business which finds itself R50bn short of the ready stuff right now. In order to raise cash, Aspen is looking to sell a whole bunch of non-core products in Australia and New Zealand to US drug maker Mylan. It’s not a fire sale though – in calm and measured tones the company let it be known that “this divestment is in line with the group’s ongoing portfolio management approach and its stated intention to not only acquire value-enhancing products, but to also divest of noncore assets, thereby ensuring enhanced operational focus.”

Comment: We’ve got this, okes.

A terrible week for the Beloved Country, as GDP declined -3.2% for the first quarter of 2019, its worst drop since the Great Recession. It was brought down by almost every sector, with agriculture the worst, down -13.2%, followed by mining at -10.8% and manufacturing at -8.8%. Trade – the sector of the economy into which our retailers fall – was down -3.6%, and after last quarter’s drop of -0.5% we’re in a technical recession. Perhaps worst of all, we lost 237,000 jobs, over half of those in construction, a bellwether of a healthy economy, and an industry which has seen only one quarter of growth in the last two years. Some experts are placing the blame for the decline squarely in the shoulders of Eskom.

Comment: Not the news we were hoping or even expecting to hear. The Zuma years were a train wreck that we could not seem to avoid. Now begins the long, painful task of extricating ourselves from the wreckage, then heaving the twisted mass back onto the tracks.