An interesting if arcane dust up in the pharmacy sector, where – follow closely now – Dis-Chem-backed tech outfit, Vexall, has asked the competition authorities to prevent Telkom-backed Business Connexion (BCX) from abusing its position in the pharmacy software industry. BCX owns Unisolv, a software tool, which processes 70% of all scripts dispensed in the Beloved Country right now, a service it bundles with a whole bunch of other value-added services, like hardware and software installation, central patient profile hosting and inventory management – services which Vexall wants to sell. BCX insist that punters won’t get full software support if they buy these services elsewhere, although – this a little disingenuously – they don’t mind Vexall selling other, non-integral services. Last year, BCX accused Vexall of poaching its staff and customers and appropriating its intellectual property.

Comment: Legacy state monopolies from the bad old days eh? Can’t live without them, can’t rely on them to keep the lights on, either.

Slow news week, which is generally when we get to report on the good stuff. Like the fact that Pick n Pay grew sales of its recyclable plastic bags +50% last year, and are aiming to increase this by another +30% by 2025, a year with a number of other goals attached to it. These include having 100% of Pick n Pay’s own packaging reusable or recyclable, and 100% of paper or cardboard responsibly sourced. This as business became a signatory, and a founding member to the recently launched SA Plastic Pact – a South African initiative aimed at promoting a circular economy. Shoprite, in the meantime, have partnered with a business called Packa-ching (catchy! Ed.) to launch a fourth mobile buyback centre in Katlehong, Johannesburg. The service sees owner-operated truck-and-trailer setups buying recyclables from select communities for cash, paid seamlessly into the e-wallets of the vendors in question. And this being an initiative from the nothing if not pragmatic Shoprite, the cash may be spent at participating outlets – such as (ahem) Shoprite and Usave.

Comment: Commendable, those giants of retail. And certainly, commercial viability is a critical part of the sustainability mix.

A uniquely South African story from Woolworths this week, where an employee has allegedly been suspended for wearing a sacred goatskin wristband, or isiphandla, worn until it falls off after participation in an ancestral ceremony. The employee had received permission to wear one after an earlier ceremony, in 2018, and had worn one for months after a second ceremony last year. It was only when the employee was receiving bakery training in September last year that the trainer recommended that she be transferred to another department until the wristband fell off. She was asked to provide a written statement as to why she was wearing the band and whether she had received permission to do so, and it was then that she was suspended with immediate effect, and told that she was under investigation until further notice. Unfair labour practices are being mentioned, and the CCMA invoked. Hopefully the issue will be resolved before that stern Commission gets involved.

Comment: There are always two sides to a story, but jeez… Woolies do know how to get on the wrong side of the optics on a David vs Goliath dispute.

In Australia, Aldi are launching an app which enables punters to speed up their shop while being regaled with the wellness credentials of each and every item they pop into their trolley, enabling them to decide whether to hold or fold as it were, depending on what the food in question is likely to do to the old pancreas. If the punter in question decides to choose something else instead, on an alternative option, the Healthy Picks app recommends a product in the same or similar category which could be considered a healthier option based on its ‘Health Star Rating’ or ‘Traffic Light Label’. The app works on any pre-packaged item, including produce. And in the US, where contracting the common cold will put you out of business and saddle your children with debt, yea, even unto the seventh generation, Kroger’s is trialling a programme where doctors write ‘food prescriptions’ for their patients – currently only those with diabetes – while in the store a dietitian provides nutrition counselling and food suggestions to help the patient better manage the disease.

Comment: Either a great leap forward or a sad indictment of the times we live in. It could, of course, be both.

Answering the fervent prayers of chicken producers these how many years now is Minister of Trade and Industry Ebrahim Patel, who has decided it’s high time to slap tariffs on unfairly cheap imports from such geographies (ahem) as Brazil and the United States of America. These imports have been costing our otherwise competitive local outfits something north of R6.5bn per annum. The South African Poultry Association has requested hefty increases, but Minister Patel has a needle to thread here, so his final numbers have not yet been published – too high, and imports could collapse, taking a whole sector of jobs with them. On the upside, of course, is local investment in production and the jobs and GDP that go with that. Imports from Europe are protected under a free trade agreement, and at least 65,000 metric tons of chicken from the US is protected by the big-stick approach the US has historically taken with the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA).

Comment: Still, a step in the right direction, which will hopefully manifest itself on the bottom lines of such businesses as RCL and Astral Foods.

In a big shake up for the ad industry, South Africa’s liquor producers have imposed on themselves (not kidding here) exacting new standards for how alcohol should be advertised and to whom. Namely and viz. they will restrict their advertising times on the television and the wireless to between 7pm and 6am, and on channels and programmes where the average age of the media consumer is likely to be older than 18, and have committed to keeping billboards away from schools, both in order to protect children and promote responsible advertising. Actors in slots must be older than 25 years of age, and get this: “The content of the advertisement may not imply that the consumption of alcoholic beverages is essential to economic/social success or acceptance, nor should it portray negatively on the refusal to consume an alcoholic beverage.” That’s not the ASA talking, folks. That’s Sibani Mngadi, Corporate Affairs Director at Diageo South Africa. The commitment is binding on all alcohol manufacturers, suppliers and retailers, and will be enforced by the Advertising Regulatory Board.

Comment: Excellent stuff from an increasingly responsible industry.

Not the news we were hoping to hear from StatsSA, we must be honest: retail sales for the month of December were down -0.4% in real terms YoY, and down -3.1% from November’s score, confounding the predictions of economists who were looking for +2.1% of upside. The culprits were “general dealers”, down -0.8%, retailers in “paint, hardware and glass” down -3.7%, and “all other retailers, down -1.7%. Our own great industry, referred to “food, beverages and tobacco in specialized stores”, was marginally up by +1.1%, having grown by +6.7% month-on-month in November while “pharmaceuticals and medical goods, cosmetics and toiletries” were up by +2.7%. The slightly more positive news is that total sales for 2019 were up +1.2% on 2018’s haul. In the meantime, there are mutterings among the economists that the dear old South African economy might have entered into a recession in the fourth quarter of the ’19.

Comment: Dismal news. The only way is up, right?