The numbers from Black Friday are not yet in, but we have some early intel from Pick n Pay for you. While televisions, they say, remain a sought-after item (with sales enough to keep a small suburb glued to Uzalo of an evening), grocery items were the big sellers, with staples like rice and instant coffee flying off the shelves, and enough UHT milk sold, they claim, “to pave a path from Gqeberha to East London” (although the efficacy of UHT against potholes remains untested). “Shoppers are increasingly using the massive savings to stock up for the festive season or restock their pantry with everyday non-perishable items,” says marketing group exec Andrew Mills. Ahead of the event, 29% of Smart Shopper loyalty members said they’d focus on grocery deals while 27% were looking for appliance and electronics deals. In other news from The Big Blue, Pick n Pay has partnered with Clickatell, a leader in mobile communications and chat commerce, to introduce a WhatsApp communication channel offering its 9 million Smart Shopper members instant and easy customer support.

Comment: Black Friday is here to stay: a clearing house for the gadgets of yesteryear and a bellwether for the holiday season to come.

Throwing it down hard this week is Checkers, Shoprite’s increasingly upmarket grocery brand, which has just launched its first smaller-format Checkers Foods store, in Weltevreden Park Shopping Centre, Roodepoort. The 1,200m² store boasts such indulgences as an impulse island – with ready-to-eat sushi and sandwiches, exclusive brands like Forage & Feast and Simple Truth, a bakery with artisanal breads, and a Starbucks. Three more Foods stores are slated to open in the early double deuce, which is our badass way of saying 2022, in Westlake, Franschhoek and Ballito. And as if this were not enough, Checkers also launched its first standalone baby store, Little Me, in Drakenstein. While there are currently Little Me’s in four existing supermarkets, “With a destination baby store, parents can browse the brands and products on offer at leisure, with specialist in-store employees on standby to be of assistance,” explains Checkers COO Willem Hunlun. Clicks has recently launched standalone baby outlets, and Dis-Chem is expanding its newly acquired Baby City chain all over the place.

Comment: There’s gold in them thar tots.

Some directors’ dealings this week, always nice to know where the people who know are putting their money vis-à-vis the businesses they help run. First up, a company owned by the family of Mr Brian Epstein, a former board member of Dis-Chem, is flogging R7.3m worth of ordinary Dis-Chem shares on the open market, and with Dis-Chem’s blessing. And Hubert Brody, Independent non-Executive Chairman of Woolworths Holdings Limited, recently snaffled up another R493,000 and some change worth of stock in the Dapper One, in three separate transactions. In other Woolies news, CEO Roy Bagattini has defended the ongoing presence of reusable plastic bags at the tills. The bags introduced in 2018, said Signor B at the recent AGM, have taken as much as six tons of plastics out of circulation, and have not impacted on the bottom line one jot. Finally, burgeoning independent Kit Kat Group opened a spanking new Kit Kat Cash and Carry in Mamelodi last week. The 12,000m² behemoth includes a variety of departments, including groceries, clothing, building materials, a Money Market, an in-house pharmacy, and a Food Lover’s Market.

Comment: Kit Kat is a business to watch, in a sector with room to grow.

In Poland, Pepco, which owns an eponymous discount chain, the Poundland marque and the Dealz fascia, is listing itself on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, seeking to grow in that challenging geography and add to its haul of 3,200 across 16 countries, en route to ultimate domination of the European continent. In the US, despite supply chain jitters and shelves devoid of both toys and tinsel, Walmart CEO John Furman is sanguine about the ongoing prosects of continued holiday cheer, after a meeting with President Joe Biden, who soothed him with eggnog and stroked the back of his hand and told him it was all going to be OK. “A lot of what you see in stores and online, all the products and what’s available, these are the results of plans, in most cases, that started over a year ago. Our merchants work about 12 months out to determine what they think the trends are, what people will be looking for,” he said recently in an interview with ABC News. “And we’re proud of our inventory position at this point.”

Comment: Hopefully some of that optimism is justified in our own embattled market back home.

In a piece of news which somehow escaped our notice at the time, Dubai-based DP World offered in July to purchase 100% of the stock of Imperial Logistics, for the more than handsome sum of 12.7 billions of rands. Imperial now believes the deal will go ahead in February 2022, two months later than planned. “This transaction will be value-enhancing for Imperial as our business will benefit from DP World’s leading technology, global networks and key trade-lane volumes, while enabling us to build on our ‘Gateway to Africa’ strategic and growth ambitions,” said Imperial Group CEO Mohammed Akoojee. “Combining DP World’s world-class infrastructure, specifically its investment and expertise in ports on the African and European continents, with Imperial’s logistics and market access platforms will enable us to offer integrated end-to-end solutions along key trade lanes into and out of Africa and accelerate our position in Europe.” Mr Akoojee expects no further, erm, roadblocks in the way of the deal.

Comment: Just us, or are South African businesses looking hot for investment these days?

Big news this week is that AVI has let it be known that it’s in talks with Oreo-owner Mondelez for the acquisition of its iconic Snackworks division, which houses biscuit maker Bakers and chip brands Willards and Baker Street Snacks. Next up, the R100m Tiger Brands Venture Capital Fund, established to invest in start-ups in the food and beverages sector, has made its first funding offer to an as-yet-unnamed outfit which is aligned with its health and nutrition strategy, while nine other opportunities are still being looked at. Finally, in a world first, Nestlé’s East and Southern Africa Region has launched a large-scale pilot project that has successfully tested an AI-driven technology at its Babelegi factory in Pretoria that reduces emissions and saves water. It has shown that the excitingly named WhiteBox can capture between 25% and 70% of Scope 1 CO2 emissions per site, while recycling available industrial wastewater. The project is a partnership with The Emissions Capture Company (ECCO) which developed the tech.

Comment: Big news all round. And further evidence, if more were needed, that SA’s companies do have much to offer global investors.

Still too early to tell what the impact of the chillingly named Omicron variant might be on our people and our economy, but the tourism and hospitality sector in the Western Cape are already feeling its effects. “This has been a hammer blow to our major job-creating sector in the province precisely when we needed a recovery, to claw back jobs lost over the last 19 months,” says Premier Alan Winde. And losses in that sector will likely have repercussions for our own wholesalers, retailers and manufacturers. On the upside, businesses across the board have welcomed President Ramaphosa’s prudent decision to keep us at Level 1 at a time when Western governments are running in the streets with their hair aflame. However, the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC), which met under wraps this weekend, is looking at possible moves to contain the spread of the new variant, which may include ways to boost vaccination rollout.

Comment: Ho, hum. Another “Finest Hour” for a country which seemingly has an endless need for them.