After a suitably cryptic announcement and a reasonable period of spinning out the suspense, Pick n Pay is ready to reveal its new trading brand – which it first introduced to us as Project Red – and it’s … Pick n Pay QualiSave! An admirably literal name for a brand that appeals to South Africa’s price and quality sensitive middle classes, QualiSave will account for around 40% of Pick n Pay stores once the conversions have been completed, offering punters a hand-selected range of 8,000 products, including meat, fresh produce, bakery goods, and essential commodities, focused on the brands and products the target market wants. “We have done an enormous amount of research to understand exactly what customers want and need,” says CEO Pieter Boone. “We are very attuned to the fact that the cost of living is increasing sharply, and Pick n Pay QualiSave will be on the side of customers in providing great everyday value and deals.” Six stores have already received the treatment, and the programme will accelerate from September.

Comment: All of this and super-snappy branding in the unmistakable red and blue Pick n Pay livery.

A couple of items from the Big Red One this week, not unrelated to the subject of kudos. First up, Shoprite has recently ranked first in the retail sector for data transparency in Environmental Social and Governance/Sustainability in the 2022 IRAS Sustainability Data Transparency Index (SDTI). IRAS recognises those companies who provide stakeholders with performance information on key sustainability matters including energy use, carbon emissions, water consumption, health and safety, human resource development, corporate social investment and more. Secondly, Checkers’ gourmet private brand Forage and Feast range is fast approaching its second anniversary and is South Africa’s only private brand range endorsed by a Michelin star chef. The flagship range now boasts 216 products across 34 categories, with another 100 to be added over the next year.

Comment: Performance in sustainability – no longer a “nice to have” – is of increasing concern to all stakeholders, particularly those who make their crust off the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE).

Supporting this month’s focus on women is Dis-Chem, which will be offering pap smears and breast examinations from 8 August until 16 September, both for only R210 at selected clinics nationally. 27 in every 100,000 women in South Africa are affected by breast cancer, with cervical cancer the next most common diagnosis. And keeping an eye on the future, Clicks received the ‘Best Performing Host Employer’ award for student placements, taking the top spot at the 2022 TVET College Strategic Industry Partnership Awards. Over the past three years, Clicks has provided learning placements for 1,179 TVET graduates in different roles across store operations, regional and head office departments, ultimately employing 433 of them. Finally, Food Lover’s Market has announced it will be expanding its solar investments and implementing energy-saving technologies in many of its DCs to reduce its Eskom bills. The business is already drawing around 400 MWh per annum from its panels, for savings of up to 30%.

Comment: Critical and meaningful outreach from these two ‘health’ retailers most readily identified with humanitarian concerns. And more proof, if it were needed, of the bottom-line impact of sustainability.

With Russia threatening cuts to the flow of gas to its Western neighbours, European retailers are planning ahead for possible energy shortages during the long dark northern winter. SPAR Austria, for example, is reducing the hours of lighting for storefront and outdoor advertising across its 1,500 stores, and Carrefour signed an “EcoWatt Charter” with French energy grid operator RTE to reduce electricity consumption in its stores during periods of high demand. Everyone’s selling electric heaters hand over fist, with a +35% increase in Germany from last year (that’s 600,000 sold), and French giant Leclerc has warned that it may be looking at cutting store hours. Finally, Belgian retailer Colruyt has 44 “zero fossil fuel” stores, which do not use fuel oil or natural gas, but are instead heated entirely by waste heat and green electricity. In the US, expanding its footprint into the very ether is Walmart, which has held talks with media behemoths Paramount, Walt Disney, and Comcast about including streaming entertainment in its membership service. All very hush-hush at the mo, but more no doubt to come.

Comment: Commendable that European retailers are planning so pragmatically for the hard times ahead. It’s a trick we should learn more broadly as a species.

A trading update from Libstar, with revenue up across all categories by +9.6% for the six months through June, and volumes up +9.6%, assisted thither by increased volumes of hard cheese under the Lancewood brand, and sauces, vinegars, and other condiments. And HEPS – considered a reliable measure of profitability – are expected to come in somewhere between 11 and 16%. So all good there. But of particular interest is the news that the owner of Denny Mushrooms and various ranges of baby food, soups, pasta, dressings and dairy, will soon be the proud owner of Cape Foods, a manufacturer of branded and private-label herbs, spices and seasoning mixes, which exports to around 30 countries around the world. The deal, says Libstar, is in line with its strategy to “grow its basket of non-commoditised food products in existing categories” and to expand to new markets and value-added products in the dry condiments category.

Comment: A solid business with ambitions to grow and the strategy, it seems, to match.

Johnson & Johnson has announced that it is pulling its talc-based baby powder globally (and of course here in the Beloved Country) in 2023 and will switch to an all corn starch-based baby powder portfolio, after years of lawsuits over allegations that it was concealing cancer risks tied to its talc-based baby powder – allegations it continues to deny. The decision to switch, it says, is purely commercial. Moving on, local inventor Sharon Rapetswa has been announced as the winner of the Unilever Global Alliance Africa Innovation Exchange Challenge, for her idea for refillable detergent packaging which could revolutionise plastic waste management in rural communities. She receives £25,000 in seed funding, and assistance in developing her solution. Currently, only 3% of rural households in South Africa actively recycle their waste. Finally, Tiger Brands, through its Venture Capital Fund, has become the first partner to join CHEP in their Step Up: Empowering SMME initiative, which helps small businesses to expand operations through networking and partnerships.

Comment: A timely end to talc, a product category which has outlived its value and whose safety remains in question.

Retail trade sales are in for the month of June, and the beard scratchers over at StatsSA don’t like what they see, with an overall decline of -2.5% YoY. The biggest contributors to this decline were retailers in hardware, paint and glass, and general dealers. The ever-reliable purveyors of textiles, clothing, footwear and leather goods made the greatest positive contribution. Our own great industry, quaintly described by StatsSA as “Food, beverages and tobacco in specialised stores”, also grew +3.9% YoY, bearing in mind that in June 2021 liquor trading was limited to four days a week from mid-month, before being completely banned from 28 June into July. This in the context of weak consumer confidence, a sluggish labour market despite a modest increase in employment in the first quarter, rising food and fuel inflation, and a poor consumer credit outlook. Economists, of course, predicted modest growth in the region of +0.5%. On the upside, retail trade sales increased by +0.5% in the second quarter of 2022 compared with the second quarter of 2021.

Comment: Just hobbling along, a state to which we are becoming sadly accustomed as a nation.