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Barrows Global is a great and visionary business that provides innovative marketing-at-retail solutions across a number of markets – here in the Beloved Country, UK, and US to name just three. On Monday 23 March, recognising the challenges of keeping staff and shoppers safe in the retail space, they designed and prototyped screens for cashiers. SPAR, Clicks and Dis-Chem immediately moved to adopt the system; Barrows pivoted their production floors overnight from manufacturing displays for retail over to the screens and used their national distribution network to get these into the stores. By the time the sun set nine days later, 17,000 of the screens had shipped to outlets around South Africa. Job done. Pick n Pay has installed similar screens, while Shoprite staff has protective face shields. Moving on, Woolworths have issued a trading statement to the effect that the closure of non-food outlets will have a deleterious effect on their earnings, to the tune of an expected 20% hit to HEPS. They’ve also let it be known that the Board, CEO and senior execs will to forego up to 30% of their fees and salaries over the next three months to provide financial support to staff affected by the current crisis. Massmart, in the meantime, has reassured punters that it has enough funding to get through the present shutdown, but is concerned about disruption to international supply chain with the closure of South Africa’s borders.

Comment: Epic work from Barrows and the retailers going to the wall to protect staff and shoppers while keeping us fed and their businesses functioning.

There is no easy way to say this: for all intents and purposes, informal retail as we understand it has ceased to exist, with spazas and other informal outlets being shut down by the army and police in some areas, while remaining open in others. This is devastating for the 500,000 people whose households directly depend on income derived from spazas and street trading for their income. It’s also devastating for millions and millions of township residents who depend on the informal trade for their daily staples, particularly fresh fruit and vegetables. Surveys held since the shutdown began reveal that shoppers are reducing or almost entirely eliminating such basics as meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables from their shopping in favour of high-calorie staples and non-perishables. Small or informal farmers, many of whom sell produce through the informal trade, have also been badly hit.

Comment: Policy is needed, and urgently, to ensure that this sector is able to continue its vital work of providing livelihoods and nutrition for South Africa’s poor.

Retailers in the US are cashing in on the corona pandemic, simply by keeping their doors and DCs open, and providing punters with what they need. General dealer Target reports March sales at +20% up YoY; grocer Kroger is expecting growth of +30%, driven by growing demand for food and domestic supplies as people stock up. Both retailers helped meet this demand by offering the increasingly popular curb-side pickup service. And then Walmart: with 5,300 stores around the States and 3,000 pickup locations. This has earned the business some new support from non-traditional demographics. The question is: will this support outlast the pandemic? And what happens when the stocking up stops? Target and Walmart have already reported a drop-off in traffic. In the UK in the meantime, as stocks show signs of returning to pre-panic-buying levels after a recruiting wave for replenishment staff, Aldi, Lidl and Morrison’s have all lifted restrictions on various types of merchandise. This after a shopping wave that saw sales rise by £2bn in a month and 80 million more shopping trips being made over the four weeks.

Comment: It’s possible that the corona pandemic has fundamentally changed how people shop, in ways that we are still to determine.

Consider, if you will, the case of Hellman’s Mayonnaise, the thick and creamy condiment that adds a touch of indulgence – of downright depravity really – to literally any meal, believe us, we’ve tried. Unilever have been considering it quite a lot, as it turns out: as worried punters have stocked their larders for the long haul, variants like the 30-oz jar of Hellman’s have flown off the shelves in North America, causing Unilever to now prioritise their production over more nifty lines like the smaller, squeezable bottle. Other priority lines include Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, which although it has somehow been left behind by the +20% increase enjoyed by the rest of the category, has nevertheless seen something of a bump, and Knorr meal mixes. “We want the whole Unilever portfolio to be back in stock everywhere as soon as possible,” says Jostein Solheim, executive vice president of foods and refreshment for North America. “But we will prioritize the core items – and that we have done across the portfolio to make sure that the highest demand is met immediately.”

Comment: An interesting peek under the bonnet of a large multinational supplier during these difficult times.

Spare, if you are so inclined, a thought for British American Tobacco (BAT), which is having a tough time here in South Africa as the well-intentioned ban on the sale of tobacco products takes hold. BAT holds a commanding 78% stake in the market here, flogging its various products in as many as 50,000 outlets, and contributing R13bn to the dear old Revenue Service. It is however fighting a war on two fronts – against those seeking to kick the habit on the one hand, and the purveyors of black market baccy on the other. It is the latter category that BAT view as the real beneficiary of the government’s ban during this difficult time. They further believe that South Africa’s 11 million smokers will be tempted into leaving their places of confinement in search of the next hit, endangering them and those with whom they come into contact. In other BAT news, the business has announced that its US biotech subsidiary, Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP) has a potential coronavirus vaccine in the works derived by inserting a potential antigen into tobacco plants for reproduction.

Comment: We’re trying to decide what’s more ironic: a tobacco ban that may be harmful to your health, or a lung-disease vaccine made from tobacco.

Another week, another blow. This time by Fitch, who having downgraded us to BB+ last year has seen fit to remove that +, on the grounds that we don’t have a clear path towards resolving our debt position, particularly in the light of the current global crisis. Fitch expects that our consolidated fiscal deficit will hit 11.5% of GDP in 2020/21, 3 percentage points up from Moody’s prediction. The dear old ZAR promptly fled for the high ground, finishing last week at over 19 to the dollar, and economists are predicting GDP could shrink by -4.7% to -5.9% this year.

Comment: Frankly, we don’t know what to say. So we will leave you with some words of hard comfort from the formidable Gloria Serobe, co-founder of women’s investment group Wiphold, chair of the coronavirus Solidarity Fund, and then-finance director of Transnet, which dug itself out of a post-apartheid debt hole back in the mid-90’s, the last time we were rated junk. “The nice thing about a credit rating,” she says “is that it has a line. You just have to follow that line. You know exactly why you are in trouble.” And speaking of lines: “There is a line of technocrats behind government that must just do what is required to get us out of where we are.” Wrapping up: “It’s not a PR game. It’s just about doing what you have to do. Focusing on fixing what is wrong.”