SPAR’s AGM was on Tuesday, and what better time to also release an 18-week trading update, 18 weeks being that joyful milestone of 2.8 of a year. Group sales were up +9.8% to R43bn, near enough for the period, with sales in Southern Africa up +3.4%, and the core grocery business increasing sales +2.8%. Tops, generally a, ahem, top performer, saw a decline of -17.9% for the period, “as a result of the pandemic,” says SPAR,” and periods of restricted trading when the ban was lifted. So what have people been doing in lockdown then, with no booze to keep them busy? You’ve got it. Dickying up the treehouse. Painting the tiles in the bathroom. Fashioning themselves a workout bench out of scaffold planking. And generally seeing to it that Build it’s sales grew an absolutely whacking +25.6%. Overseas, much? Sales in Ireland were up +4.3%, +13.8% in Switzerland, and a massive +38.1% in Poland, where apparently the SPAR retailers are coming onboard nicely.

Comment: Some very good numbers, presaging a promising set of interims in May, by which time Tops will have come back onstream.

Since the beginning pf the pandemic, Shoprite has given away a hefty R100m in food – the equivalent of about 27 million meals – to organisations around the country. Food security has long been a preoccupation for the Big Red One, a pragmatist in all things including charity. As the government’s R350 COVID grants start to dry up, this mission has become more urgent than ever, particularly for the most vulnerable South Africans. Accordingly, Shoprite provided almost 800,000 meals to 109 Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres during their COVID-19 closures last year and has served 4 million meals via its mobile soup kitchens. The Group has donated thousands of COVID-19 care packages to hospitals in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. Another aspect of Shoprite’s efforts is its ongoing role as South African’s second largest employer after the government: 141,000 South Africans are employed as frontline workers by the Group, which has grown its employment numbers by opening stores even through the pandemic.

Comment: We know as you do that all of our retailers are doing their bit during this incredibly difficult time. Shoprite’s programs do provide a useful window into the scale of their collective efforts though.

According to the venerable worthies of the SA Council of Shopping Centres, about R780bn, or 72%, of total retail sales was generated across SA’s almost 2,000 malls last year. Will it ever be thus? Not on your nelly. Thanks Amazon, thanks drones. But reports of the demise of everyone’s favourite Saturday afternoon excursion have been greatly exaggerated. While trading density measured across a sample hundred malls declined precipitously by -64.1% YoY to last April (i.e. at the height of our various lockdowns), it had recovered nicely to an annualised decline of only -4.2% in September. And going further back, it was up +5.7% in February 2020, before COVID-19 made its presence fully felt. This according to the quarterly "Retail Trends Report" from the SA Property Owners Association (Sapoa), which also notes that while foot count was down -19%, spend per head was up a healthy +6.9% in September.

Comment: So look to the skies for the whirring of tiny rotors, if you must. But invest also in your bricks and mortar footprint.

Aldi has announced that it’s gearing up to open another 100 stores across the US in 2021, focusing its efforts on Arizona, California, Florida and the Northeast, and adding to the global haul of 10,000. In perhaps even bigger news, the business is working on “a globally uniform and future-oriented IT landscape” which is Aldi-speak for “we’re dipping a belated toe into the already teeming waters of online retail.” “You’re funny,” says rival Lidl, launching a new WhatsApp customer support service, having launched a digital loyalty card last year sometime. Tesco, in the meantime, has reported its best fresh produce sales this entire millennium, as Brits take to lockdown-influenced home cooking like nobody’s business. And speaking of fresh, Amazon Fresh has launched in Italy, where attractive paesanas in polka-dotted skirts will deliver the order to your door.

Comment: This digital stuff really is all the rage now, isn’t it?

Here’s a fun fact for your next dinner party conversation. Should there ever be a next dinner party. Your next Zoom hang then. Ready? 80% of beer sold in South Africa is packaged in returnable bottles, one of the highest rates in the world. And the reason we know this, is because there is now a shortage of these bottles, courtesy somehow of the recent booze bans, which have disrupted the bottle cycle, that vast, poorly understood natural process which keeps cold ones coming to your lapha bang on schedule. The shortage seems to have affected all of SA’s major beer producers and many of the country’s major beer sellers too, including Makro and Ultra. In the wine industry, they have a problem of a different sort: something between 250 million and 300 million unsold litres, courtesy also of COVID.

Comment: Tough times for everyone in our sector, but particularly those in liquor.

Major chocolate buyers Nestlé, Cargill, Mars, Mondelez, Hershey, Barry Callebaut, and Olam are the subjects of a global lawsuit from International Rights Advocates, a global NGO representing eight Malian men who, they say, were trafficked as children and forced to harvest cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire. “Child labour is a complex, global problem, and tackling this issue is a shared responsibility,” says Nestlé. “All stakeholders – including governments, NGOs, communities, and the broader cocoa industry – need to continue to address its root causes to have an impact.” Hershey say that the issue “requires significant investment and intervention on the ground in West Africa, not in the courts.” All of the companies in question signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol, committing themselves to cease using child labour by 2005.

Comment: Global supply chains contain many traps for well-intentioned businesses. And worse traps for the world’s poor.

More South Africans are purchasing groceries online and shopping closer to home to avoid unnecessary trips to malls and large supermarkets. However, where one would anticipate less top-up basket shopping and more full trolley shopping, recent observations in retail have revealed a reduction in full-trolley shopping, even at month-end. Trade Intelligence analyst, Andrea du Plessis, recently attended a workshop at retail solutions business Smollan, which has observed that retailers have responded to the increased need for value by replacing month-end discount deals with more frequent value offerings through broadsheet advertising. The consistent presence of value deals throughout the month eases the pressure on month-end shopping. Shoppers are regularly seen using broadsheets in store to select discounted products off the shelf, and even across multiple stores during one shopping trip. The rise of online grocery shopping will undoubtedly influence these dynamics but given the still relatively low penetration of home delivery, especially in South Africa, the big changes are still happening in store, where broadsheet promotions remain a key driver of shopper behaviour. For more on this, read Andrea’s opinion piece here

Comment: Broadsheets have long been a staple of the South African retail landscape. It seems they’re as powerful a tool for brands and retailers as they’ve ever been – and adaptable too.