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A trading update of characteristic honesty from Massmart, which is executing its turnaround strategy in conditions that, to put it mildly, just never seem to get any easier. Its update for the half year through June indicates losses of between R745m and R836m, an improvement on the R907.7m it logged this time last year, but only just, after taking a half-billion rand write-down for Game’s losses. Group sales are up somewhere in the order of +4.4% to R41.3bn. Not accounted for are losses at Cambridge and Rhino, which are still on the market if you’re interested. Massmart has also let it be known that it doesn’t believe its insurance will fully cover the losses from the recent outbreak of looting and arson and expects further write-downs from this. The turnaround strategy at Game includes investment in new software, better customer service and more efficient e-commerce; indications are that these have not yet taken hold. COVID has also taken its toll on foot traffic. On the upside, Makro grew sales by +13.5% to R13.7bn, and Builders was up +24% to R7.2bn.

Comment: No one goes broke selling gumboots and bags of cement to South Africa’s weekend warriors, it seems.

Some news of the wired this week: First up from Woolies, which is currently launching Near Field Communication (NFC) technology in some of its stores. NFC facilitates wireless communication between a user’s phone and a chip reader to augment and streamline the shopping experience; using this tech, punters will be able to tap their phones on NFC tags in various locations in-store to browse, ‘try on’, and order products not available in store. The Dapper One will test NFC in its beauty department – and in its WCellar stores in Nicolway and Sandton – before rolling it out elsewhere. Next up: SPAR International, who is partnering with Naveo Commerce to offer a fully customisable e-commerce solution to SPAR organisations and retailers, as part of its worldwide digital transformation strategy. The Naveo-powered platform optimises in-store picking and order fulfilment, ensuring rapid delivery to SPAR’s customers in the communities the extensive SPAR store network serves. The technology is modular, allowing store owners to pick and choose the bits they need for a solution customised to their needs.

Comment: Truly we live in a time of wonders, many of which are harnessed to the great project of establishing omnichannel as a force in retail.

Women’s month, so what better time to break the news that Pick n Pay has spent R5.4bn on black women-owned small businesses this year, significantly up from the R2bn spent in the 2019 FY. The Big Blue has more than 2,000 black-owned small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in its supply chain, and over 50% of these are women-owned. Its Enterprise and Supplier Development programme provides a holistic package of support for SMMEs, including opportunities to sell goods and services to the business. And it’s by no means all just about doing the right thing. “Women-owned businesses are a really important part of our supply chain. They help us provide an excellent service and some of the best-loved products to happy customers,” explains head of enterprise development Mishinga Seyuba-Kombo. “It’s a real privilege to stand behind them and support them all the way.”

Comment: It’s important that businesses in our industry empower their women-owned suppliers in this way. It’s almost as important that they communicate progress, to inspire the rest of us. Nice job, Pick n Pay.

In Brazil, home to the world’s largest rainforest and not coincidentally the world’s largest deforestation programme, French grocery giant Carrefour has introduced a range of 100% traceable, ‘deforestation-free’ beef products, in partnership with The Sustainable Trade Initiative. Related, German discounter Lidl has introduced a new vegan range in the UK, which includes ‘fish’ fingers, ‘chicken’ patties, juicy burgers, pizza and dairy-free ice creams. In the US, closely tracking Amazon, Walmart has advertised for a digital currency and cryptocurrency product lead, presumably with an eye to either accepting payments by crypto, or starting its own digital currency, which is apparently all the rage. And speaking of Amazon, the world’s largest anything, by any measure, has introduced a private label range of groceries in the UK – ‘By Amazon’ includes household basics such as chicken, bin bags, coffee and toilet paper.

Comment: We’re all in for anything that includes reducing emissions and deforestation. So are a growing number of consumers. And for our friends in the beef industry, we have one word: Kodak.

The Great Tiger Brands Dodgy Can Saga of 2021 continues: The recall of cans with a potentially iffy side-seam has now reached across oceans to its markets in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. In July, you will erm, recall, Tiger announced that it would be pulling 20 million cans off the shelves, amounting to 9% of annual production, worth a cool R650m, under its KOO and Hugo brands. The cans in question had been provided by a supplier to Tiger. The Professional Body for Supply Chain Management (Sapics), in the meantime, is using Tiger’s misfortune to highlight the Cinderella of the supply chain industries: reverse logistics, or the discipline of getting stuff off the shelves and back to the warehouse. “Having efficient, tried and tested recall plans and effective reverse logistics programmes in place is essential for manufacturers, retailers and everyone in the end-to-end supply chain,” says Sapics boss MJ Schoemaker. “It can mitigate the potential damage and turmoil associated with a recall, including ensuring the health and safety of consumers, maintaining good relationships with suppliers and customers, preserving brand reputation and retaining the trust of consumers, and reducing the potentially enormous costs associated with a recall.”

Comment: We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

The good news keeps rolling in from the fertile vistas of the Platteland. Agricultural exports, something of a mainstay of the dear old South African economy, reached R90,49bn in the first half of 2021, a +30% YoY increase. This growth was driven by a bumper planting of maize, and with the presence of a weak La Niña weather system in the Pacific, the bounty seems likely to continue, with good rains forecast for the next growing season. Farmers being farmers, though, this news is reason for handwringing and prophecies of ruin. The prices of maize and soya are of grave concern to farmers who peddle in these commodities, says Henry Geldenhuys, president of TAU SA, who also notes that the availability and cost of inputs, especially fertiliser, is a cause for anxiety among the otherwise stern sons and daughters of the soil. And the recent unrest, particularly the attendant road closures, were also of concern to a sector that depends heavily upon market access.

Comment: this as it may, the immediate news from agriculture is positive. Long may it remain so.

Not unrelated to the story above on agriculture is the fact that we’ve recorded a trade surplus this year, exceeding our 2020 numbers on the back of a commodities boom and the rise in agricultural exports in question. This after a sluggish decade: between 2010 to 2019, the country’s export growth rate more than halved, symptomatic of a larger trend, where South Africa’s share of world exports fell from 0.6% in 1990 to 0.4% in 2019. Putting some numbers to that: if we’d merely maintained this share, we would be $50bn richer per annum than we are now, at a time when we could really use the extra wedge. There are many reasons for our decline – the fact that our exports are now concentrated in slow-growing markets, our cautious approach to trade agreements, and the preponderance of raw materials and intermediate goods in what we send forth.

Comment: Diversifying our client base, reducing policy uncertainty, and developing the ability to sell more complex manufactured goods are key to fixing this.