Massmart have been keeping something of a low profile of late but have popped their heads over the parapet to deliver a breathless trading update for the 52 weeks through to 27 December 2020. Total sales were down -7.7% to R86.5bn YoY, with like store sales down -7.5%. South African sales were down -7.9%, with sales in the rest of Africa slightly better at -5.4%. Sales lost due to COVID, say the Men in Black, were estimated at around R5.7bn. Fourth quarter sales were more promising, coming in at -4.1% under the same period last year. Liquor sales have been something of a wash under the draconian restrictions on that category. For readers of a financial bent, Massmart has announced that it will be entering a management services agreement with Genpact covering financial transaction processing activities. Genpact are a strategic partner of Walmart.

Comment: It will be interesting to see, when the financials come out, what profits Massmart has managed to extract from these numbers.

Checkers Sixty60 app, launched as it was in the sudden boom for online shopping that was 2020, has been receiving accolades all over the place, including (deep breath) the People’s Choice Award and the Best Enterprise Solution at the 2020 MTN Business App of the Year Awards; the 2020 BCX Digital Innovation Awards; a gold award in the Service Design category at the 2020 Loeries; and gold awards for Tech Innovation and Business Unusual at the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) South Africa SMARTIES Awards 2020. They’ve racked up another one, with recognition as one of Memeburn’s best apps of 2020. With more than 1 million app downloads and more than 12,000 groceries to choose from on the Sixty60 app, the service will be expanding to 20+ new areas over the next three months.

Comment: Excellent work, that algorithm.

With the announcement of Pick n Pay’s new CEO, Pieter Boone, the business is coming under a fair bit of scrutiny in the business press. Generally, pundits have spoken approvingly of the work of outgoing CEO Richard Brasher for his sterling work in growing footprint, getting IT up to date, and sorting out the DCs. Boone’s job, they reckon, will be to spruce up the stores and improve product lines to ensure that Pick n Pay remains competitive with an increasingly upmarket Checkers. Some commentators have mentioned that now might have been the time to bring a woman as CEO onboard, but the fact that they didn’t is not, frankly, a peculiarity of Pick n Pay. Others have pointed to a slap on the wrist Mr Boone received at the hands of the German authorities some years ago after a spot of what appeared to be market manipulation when he and some colleagues bought Metro shares before an announcement that would see the share price tick up nicely – an announcement they apparently did not know was coming.

Comment: Be this all as it may, South African retail has had its fair share of CEOs from beyond our borders in recent years. And it’s high time a woman got the top job too.

We had no idea that Canadian outfit Alimentation Couche-Tard were looking to acquire a majority stake in French giant Carrefour, for the princely sum of $20bn, but there you have it. And now, as it happens, the French government (in France they call it ‘le Government’) has gone and scuppered the deal (sacre bleu!) on the grounds that the deal would threaten French job security and food sovereignty. And we know how very, very seriously the French take the sovereignty of their food. The two retailers are now exploring operational partnerships as a consolation prize. In the US, Walmart are beginning to offer COVID vaccinations in the states of Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina and Texas, as well as Puerto Rico, in the absence of anything resembling a rollout plan.

Comment: There, as here, it seems, the private sector has an outsize role to play in the delivery of essential services.

Having gone just about as big as it’s possible for an FMCG manufacturer to go without actually being Nestlé, Unilever has now decided to head in the opposite direction (Get to it. Ed.) by trialling an excitingly named ‘Nano Factory’ that fits into a 12m shipping container – which we are beginning to suspect were invented only so people could come and fit things other than cargo into them. Anyway: the factory contains a fully functioning production line into which raw material is inserted and from which fully packaged products emerge. The first factory, under testing in the Netherlands, will produce liquid bouillon. Once rolled out, the format will be used for small runs and to test new products. The unit is transportable by truck and requires only an electrical outlet and water supply to be up and running. Unilever envisage a future of flexible and networked manufacturing that responds nimbly to local demand, under digital remote control. “We can see a future where we have a truly dynamic model, with thousands of local production lines all over the world instead of one big one in a massive building,” says Unilever engineering manager Olivera Trifunovic.

Comment: Truly, we are living in a time of wonders.

And so the rush kicks in. Distell and Remgro are developing a taste for the soothing and newly lucrative bud, with an investment into cannabis wellness brand Rethink, which was launched by Paarl-based Releaf Pharmaceuticals in 2019. Each have taken a 20% stake in the business and will work with its original owners to grow its portfolio of cannabis-based products. Other big businesses looking at dipping a toe into this entirely new industry are AB InBev, Molson Coors, and Labat Africa. According to Research and Markets, the global market for cannabidiol (CBD) oil and the overall CBD consumer health market could be worth $123bn in 2027, and the cannabis beverage market a cool $8.5bn. According to the DTI and the Agricultural Research Council, the formal and informal markets for cannabis products could total R28bn by 2024.

Comment: For more on this massive new opportunity, you should have a look at the Trade Intelligence opinion piece on the subject, right here.

So retail trade sales were in for the month of November, and as expected, they tended low, declining by -4.0% YoY. Our own great sector, represented by ‘Food, beverages and tobacco in specialised stores’ dropped by -2.6%, while the pharmacies enjoyed modest growth of +0.3%. It would seem that the dear old SA consumer was in a domestic frame of mind: ‘furniture and appliances’ grew pleasingly by +7.8% for the month, while ‘hardware, paint and glass’ came positively storming home at +14.0%. ‘All other’ retailers just nosedived, at a negative -26.1%. Question on everyone’s mind: what does this say about Black Friday? Well, you do the numbers. October’s decline was only -2.3% overall, and a number of retailers had already reported a disappointing month. You can also view our take on it in our Trade Intelligence Black Friday opinion piece here. And, says Stanlib economist Kevin Lings, things are not getting better in a hurry. “Unfortunately, this weakness is likely to intensify in the first two months of 2021 given ongoing lockdown restrictions, an expected increase in unemployment, lower salary adjustments, renewed load-shedding and less fiscal stimulus,” he intones.

Comment: Let’s hope it ain’t so.