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As with centralised distribution, Pick n Pay were not exactly early adopters when it came to loyalty programmes. However, their Smart Shopper programme, despite one unfortunate hiccup when they realised how much shoppers actually loved it and were forced to devalue the Smart Pula, has been a howling success. And now they’re stepping it up: Should you be fortunate enough to possess R75 or more in Smart Shopper points, you can use it to pay for your petrol at select BP stations, where you will also earn Smart Shopper points at the pump, in a sort of virtuous circle of shopper loyalty. The programme launched last November, so this news is not exactly hot off the presses, but according to BP it has been a winner at a time when SA’s cash-strapped punters are welcoming any little thing that will make a difference.

Comment: Solid stuff from a retailer that’s really getting back into the game.

So Woolies is packing its erstwhile CEO Ian “The Professional” Moir off to finish the contretemps he started Down Under with the purchase of David Jones. Nah worries, mate, says Mr M. Put me on a plane, bob’s your uncle. There are those who argue that this is throwing good CEOs after bad money, but not Syd Vianello: “You can’t fix up a really, really tricky thing by remote control,” argues the legendary analyst. “Because he lives there and because he’s the guy who made the acquisition in the first place, it’s his job now to fix it up.” Other analysts also point to the solid shape in which the South African operation finds itself, and note the role that local CEO Zyda Rylands has played in its ongoing success. In other Woolies news, the Dapper One is trialling a natty line in 100% recycled paper bags, as part of their driver to eliminate plastics from their value chain where possible. A challenge with the new bags is that they take up seven times the space of plastics, and accommodations need to be made around this.

Comment: We still have an uneasy feeling about David Jones, but perhaps Mr Moir does know best.

Well the Choppies board has released those forensic reports and they are a doozy. We can’t reprint them here, of course, but they raise all manner of questions about bulk sales and inventory, store acquisitions in South Africa, and exactly why then-CEO Ram Ottapathu bought a big chunk of stock in a Choppies competitor. You’d think that would be enough news for one week, but then Mr O. staged a dramatic coup after an extraordinary meeting of shareholders last Wednesday, persuading shareholders to replace the entire board, and insert a couple of his own picks, including former Astral Foods FD Tom Pritchard, Choppies founder and executive deputy chair Farouk Ismail, and, yes, Ottopathu himself. So big changes. What hasn’t changed, as yet, is that Choppies shares remain delisted from both the Botswana Stock Exchange and the JSE, and that they’re still considering shutting shop in South Africa.

Comment: A cracker of a yarn, with a few chapters still to run no doubt.

Spare a thought for retailers in the USA who are facing the prospect of $250bn worth of Trump-branded tariffs bearing down on them like an out-of-control juggernaut, courtesy of the great man’s lunatic trade war with China. What will they do? Get out the Sharpie and start marking up prices, willy nilly? Or take it on the chin and shield punters from the worst of the increases in the hopes that it will all be over, come November 2020? Businesses like Lowe’s and Home Depot, which derive less than 10% of their stock from China are looking good. Walmart, conversely, is not, although it does have scale and swing with the suppliers on its side. Back in dear old Blighty, meanwhile, they have their own juggernaut to contend with, and either way you look at it, it starts with a “B”. Morrisons, just to pull a name out of a hat, has reported a -2% drop in second quarter sales, attributable, they say, to the ongoing assault from Aldi and Lidl, and to uncertainty stemming from Brexit.

Comment: Interesting times, as the old Chinese curse goes.

Anglovaal Industries Limited, as we still call it down at the Club, had a similarly torrid time as the rest of us, this last FY, with HEPS down -4.9% and operating profit -3% on a like-for-like basis, while still managing to pay a dividend, albeit slightly smaller than last year. They do, however, expect things to return to profitability in 2020 on the back of a strong stable of brands and good pricing. But they’re far from sanguine: “The trading environment is expected to remain difficult, with constrained consumer spending,” they intone. “Our expectation is that many of our categories will continue to have low, or even negative, growth rates until there is a meaningful improvement in the economy.” Although they do mention that they’re thinking of the odd local or international acquisition in the next year, if appropriate.

Comment: Much as we’re thinking of buying a Lamborghini. Mixed messages, but a generally positive picture.

An after-tax loss of R184m for RCL FOODS for the year through June, sadly, after last year’s profit of around R878m, a state of affairs they attribute to the predatory practices of chicken importers, and nothing in the way of protection from the government, and on the new sugar tax. On the upside, though, the grocery division put in a strong performance, with the turnaround of MillBake progressing on better efficiencies and better volumes. Interestingly, the market responded positively to the results, which were pretty much as expected, rewarding RCL with a +12.75% jump in the share price. Sea Harvest, in the meantime, had a solid interim period through June with revenue up +86% to R1.87bn, and operating profit +70% to R281m, on the back of its acquisitions of Viking Fishing and Ladismith Cheese.

Comment: We know there’s a turnaround story for RCL, and we look forward to the day when we bring it to you in these pages.

Couple of sorry numbers from the fiscus, this week. One is that the current account deficit – the balance of trade as it used to be called – has risen more than expected in the second quarter, to 4% from 2.9%, or to put it another way, to R204bn from R143.5bn. On the upside, the number averaged around 5% between 2012 and 2015, so we’re not there yet. The other number is the ratio of taxes collected to GDP. While income taxes collected were up by +9.7% for the first four months of the current FY, total tax revenue grew by only +4.8%, against an increase in government spending of +10.3%, for a budget deficit of R33bn. And all of this against GDP growth of just +1%. One more number: Ernst & Young tell us that the flows of foreign direct investment to Africa are expected to increase by +15 % this year.

Comment: There is an opportunity to be seized, but our economy is not in great shape to seize it.