Remember shopping? We used to love it. Strolling the aisles, picking stuff up, idly scrutinising the label, putting it back if we didn’t like what we saw. Shooting the breeze with a cashier, rubbing elbows with your fellow punters. Thanks, COVID. Fortunately for all those great retailers we used to frequent, cometh the hour, cometh the tech. Thus it was that Pick n Pay took advantage of the now admittedly rather quaint technology of email to power its Collect Direct grocery ordering and pickup service, which it has now extended into the catchily-named Liquor Collect Direct. It’s also partnered with Bottles for a more app-driven approach. The enterprising Bottles app has been delivering grocery essentials during Prohibition; now it will deliver both booze and snacks. And the V&A Waterfront is offering a drive through service in partnership with delivery company Pargo and a whole bunch of the stores in the mall, from Old Khaki to @Home.

Comment: That’s how you do it.

Massmart has approached the old man for a bit of help to get it over the COVID hump, to the tune of a R4bn inter-company loan from Walmart. This as it announced that sales for the 23-week period through 7 June totalled R34.8bn, -10.3% down from last year, with like-store sales down a similar amount, and sales in South Africa down -11.5%. The loan, says Massmart, will “provide additional headroom in the event of unforeseen circumstances as we navigate through the lockdown period and beyond.” Translation: the cash will help Massmart through a period of presumably temporary illiquidity, caused by the hit it has taken in sales during the pandemic. This hit included R2.3bn in liquor sales lost during the lockdown in April and May. The Men in Black also project that profits for the six months through June will be -50% down from the same period last year.

Comment: Nice to have a partner like Walmart to keep things flowing during a time like this.

Tesco have bailed on their Polish venture with the sale of its 301 stores, its DCs, and its head office to the Salling Group of Denmark. This follows the disposal of its operations in Japan, South Korea, the US, Turkey and its south-east Asian business in Thailand and Malaysia as it refocuses on the lucrative but sometimes troubled domestic market. And they’re keeping an eastern European toehold in the more promising markets of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. In the US, Walmart are going all-in on healthcare, with the opening of more “Walmart Health” centres offering primary medical services, dental care, optometry, lab tests, X-rays, hearing, wellness education and behavioural health services. Unrelated, they’re also partnering with Amazon rival Shopify in a deal that allows Shopify to list items on the Walmart site.

Comment: Walmart are stepping into the teeming intersection between people who need healthcare and people who can afford neither insurance nor rapaciously-priced visits to the GP.

Pretty much the first story we wrote when we started this rag back in the year dot was about a scrappy little outfit called Joekels Tea Packers, which had snaffled venerable rooibos brand Laager from Unilever in 2003, and was in the process of building an empire on the broad and sunburned shoulders of South Africa’s favourite hot beverage, give or take. By 2009, the owners of Joekels, Joe Swart and Jonathan Kelsey, had sold 51% of the business to Tetley’s, had launched various Tetley’s brands and expanded the Laager range, and in 2015 were given Shoprite’s prestigious Big Brand of the Year. They now do private label for both Shoprite and Pick n Pay, which have also awarded them their Best Own Brand Supplier prize. Oh yes, and Laager has just turned 75.

Comment: Not bad for a couple of okes out of a garage in Pinetown. Semper Durbs aliquid novi, as Pliny the Elder was fond of remarking.

Some movement in the permanently embattled poultry sector, where Country Bird has just bought Quantum Foods stock off Zeder Investments for R5 per share, or R308m all told. Zeder, you will recall, had held these shares since Quantum was unbundled from Pioneer Foods in 2014. Quantum is of course big in the egg market, and also interestingly, sells a lot of chickens to Astral Foods, which is the biggest producer of South Africa’s favourite white meat. Country Bird Holdings produces poultry and animal feed, and has some KFC franchises in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Analysts are a little on the fence re the deal, some arguing that Zeder was had, while others reckon the business went for a fair price looking at the current numbers, but probably a little on the low side given its longer-term prospects, efficient administration and propensity for generating the ready stuff.

Comment: Poultry’s looking like a pretty consolidated industry. Still, achieving scale through acquisition might be the best way to keep afloat right about now.

Leaning heavily on the Gospel of St Matthew, Minister Mboweni invoked the narrow, more difficult gate of austerity through which we shall have to pass to avoid the sovereign debt crisis “This means,” he said “that we will try to reduce all expenditure that we thought we can no longer afford.” Then, taking the pragmatic tone we have come to expect of him, “After all, we are not as rich as we were ten years ago.” The intention, he said, is to narrow the deficit and stabilise debt at 87.4% of GDP in 2023/24, while using the development of infrastructure as “the fly wheel by which we grow the economy.” He reserved his sternest words for Eskom, which he characterised as a system inherited from the time (if not the actual person) of King George V. “The principle of zero‐based budgeting is that we must see the demonstrable value for money,” he thundered. “Eskom will need to show progress in meeting the milestones as laid down in the Roadmap.” On the downside: “This year nearly half of all consolidated revenue will go towards the compensation of workers in the public. We value the important work public servants do.”

Comment: Bottom line – things are tight, and they’re going to get tighter. At the end of the day, it’s not the what, but the how. Will we execute the Government’s big plan, efficiently and honestly, without seeing infrastructure spending as one last chance to loot what’s left of the coffers? We’d better hope so.