Hot on the heels of the Clicks results come a tidy set from Dis-Chem (please drop the hyphen, the upper-case C, or both, they’re exhausting our typesetters), who reported revenue growth of +16.6% to R14.9bn for the six months through August, and operating profit up +24.8% to R758m. Breaking those numbers down a little, dispensary turnover increased +18.2% to R4.6bn, with the second and third waves of COVID, healthcare and nutrition was up +7.9% to R3.2bn, and personal care and beauty grew +8.9% to R3.4bn. And its wholesale operation grew turnover +17.3% to R10.9bn with a focus on efficiency gains though systems and data analytics. The business plans to add another seven stores in the second half of a year which also sees it integrating the 35 Baby City stores and 50 Medicare stores into the business, with another 20 or 25 Dis-Chems next year. It has plans for further growth through private label and a roll-out of automated forecasting and replenishment will drive efficiencies.

Comment: It turns out that the number two slot is not necessarily an unenviable position, particularly when it’s filled by so energetic and innovative a business. For more on these results, have a look at our excellent summary here.

Some store openings from Shoprite this week – a bold new Checkers in Corkwood Square, Kariega, with 15 pay points and several in-store fresh food departments including a Meat Market, Hot & Cold Foods Deli, Bakery, Fresh Fruit & Vegetables and Coffee Bar. In Flagstaff, in the Eastern Cape, a brand-new Shoprite will bring to the unbanked punters there its newly expanded Money Market offering, which includes the payment of municipal accounts, money transfers, top up of data, airtime or electricity, purchasing gift cards or savings stamps, buying tickets, and even taking out insurance. From bricks to clicks: Massmart has concluded its acquisition of online grocery retail platform OneCart. And sticking with Massmart, Game’s consumer survey for the third quarter has found that despite 2021 being a challenging year economically, 67% of South African consumers are planning to shop for bargains in this month that has, inevitably, become known as Black November.

Comment: Shoprite’s continued focus on its Money Market offering is further evidence of its ambition to be more than a retailer, but a giant of the SA Economy, from electricity generation to financial services.

As further evidence that there’s no silver bullet solution to any of our problems, retail behemoth Walmart is trialling various solutions to the hitherto intractable problem of single-use plastic bags. One such solution, Fill It Forward, allows punters to accumulate points on the use of reusable bags; the points are then converted into hard cash and donated to local charities. And other is the imposition of a returnable deposit on Goatote reusable bags. In France, Carrefour is upping its delivery game with the delivery of groceries from micro-fulfilment centres around Paris within 15 minutes using Uber. The centres are run by Carrefour-backed start-up Cajoo. In the UK, Tesco has opened its first checkout-free store, called GetGo, shopping in which is driven by the Tesco.com app. Tesco is also teaming up with German “dark store” delivery group Gorilla to trial a ten-minute delivery service, thus sticking it to its traditional enemies across the channel (see Carrefour above).

Comment: Micro-fulfilment is going to be huge, if you’ll indulge us.

In another world, Sodastream might have been just another curiosity of the 1970s, like safari suits and fondue parties. In this world, happily, the business has found its rhythm and gone from strength to strength. Acquired by PepsiCo as part of its Performance with Purpose journey in 2018 and boosted by a surge in online sales during the early days of the COVID pandemic, the fizzy favourite is the world’s leading sparkling water brand by volume consumption. It also resonates with consumers at a time when everyone is trying to trim their household budget and eliminate plastic waste: one Sodastream bottle can replace 5,070 bottles in the average household over three years. Now, in a genius new collaboration to rival the freshest of sneaker releases, Sodastream has teamed up with PepsiCo to launch five new flavour variants Pepsi, Pepsi Max, 7UP, 7Up Free and Mirinda – all at the low, low price of R3,33 per litre of sparkling water and with each flavour bottle making nine litres of fizzy beverage.

Comment: A brilliant new way of driving sales for Sodastream and brand equity for PepsiCo – which may still be the world’s number two purveyor of soft drinks but is right up there when it comes to innovation.

Not many big meaty stories this week, so again, some news from across the industry. First up, Tiger Brands has issued a profit warning for the year through August, noting that the recall of contaminated cans from its Koo and Hugo’s divisions, together with July’s civil unrest, will have cost the business upwards of R700m when the counting’s done. HEPS are likely to come through at somewhere between 5% and 15% down year on year. Distell now – different story. Despite a trading loss of 25 days in the first quarter of this, shall we say, challenging financial year, the business has recorded double-digit revenue growth, although which digits it does not specify, and volume improvement in the twenties, again the exact twenty to which it refers is not provided. And wrapping up, if you’ll forgive us, in the verdant province of KwaZulu-Natal, Tetrapak is investing R500m in expanding and upgrading the production capacity of its Pinetown materials factory, allowing the business to extend its reach in the Southern African region.

Comment: Everywhere in this great country we call home the wheels of commerce and industry are grinding busily away. Now if only we can get them to do so without the use of so much coal…

A peek beneath the bonnet of the legal and regulatory environment in which our industry operates: in May, the Government introduced Mandatory Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) under the National Environmental Management Waste Act (NEMWA). EPR requires that all consumer brands and producers of packaged goods take responsibility not only for the health and safety issues associated with these products, but also for the management of their post-consumer packaging waste – including collection, sorting and recycling. Basically, these businesses must ensure that their products don’t negatively affect the environment after purchase, and that appropriate post-use treatment actually occurs. The policy is aimed both upstream (for example, ensuring that products are designed for recycling) and downstream (like planning for increased waste collection). It’s now required that companies with packaging volumes of 10 tons or more a year register with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and any relevant Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs) and must belong to an EPR scheme – by the end of this week, no less.

Comment: Worthy, no doubt, but onerous, and presumably tricky to enforce.