OK let’s get this over with. Every week the papers are full of The Big Deal, with precious little room for the other guys in the dugout, but it is a big deal after all, and here’s everything you need to know until next week:

• Walmart put out a big, yankee blue and yellow broadsheet offering long deep cuts on attractive items from Game, Makro, DionWired and Builders
• Whitey Basson thinks Walmart is a “small competitor” upon whose “activity” he does not deign to comment
• Nick Badminton of Pick n Pay (at a trading margin of 2.9%) welcomes Massmart (4.3%) to the low-margin business
• That nice young Mr Pattison promises 15,000 jobs in the next 5 years and growth in the food business to the tune of R60billions – which will largely benefit local businesses
• SACCAWU are appealing the Tribunal’s decision on the grounds of witchcraft
• 3 Walmart men join the Massmart board – CEO Doug McMillon, money guy Jeffrey Davis and business development specialist JP Suarez
• SARS will be cashing in to the tune of R400million, as they do
• Messrs Pattison, Lamberti and Hayward jointly realise a handsome R249million through the sale of some of their Massmart shares

Comment: Which would buy you a lot of cheap TVs from Makro.

Pick n Pay has scooped a hatful of awards at the African Access National Business Awards, taking home the Environmental Social Governance (ESG) prize and the Innovation Through Technology award. Boxer Superstores’ Marketing Director Andrew Mills took home the Top Performing Businessman of the Year award. Mills was recognised for his dedication to the brand, the enthusiasm he shows in the way he interacts with all staff and the company’s customers, as well as his business resilience, upright ethics and love for everything he does. One of his recent coups for the brand was the series of Diski Imbizo fan parks Boxer ran during the World Cup last year.

Comment: Nice one, PnP, especially you, Boxer.

Since launching in Feb ’09, Fruit & Veg City have rolled out 50 Fresh Stops in Caltex forecourts. And that’s not all – in converted forecourt stores, footfall increased 12% and sales a whacking 40% in 2010, in a sector where average sales were declining to the tune of 6%. And even that, is not all: fuel sales at petrol stations with Freshstops rose 8% in a market where sales were up only 1%. 50 new Freshstops are currently in development, and the goal is to roll them out to 500 of Caltex’s 860 service stations. Part of FVC’s competitive advantage in the very competitive forecourt market is its ability to convert a forecourt store to a Freshstop in 2 weeks, with minimum disruption to traffic.

Comment: Fantastic model from a brilliant family business.

Imperial Logistics has won the Mail & Guardian Greening the Future award for innovative environmental strategies that improve business performance. The Group’s focus on supply chain best practice demonstrates that logistics delivers operational and economic benefits, while limiting carbon footprint and waste. The Greening the Future judges said that Imperial Logistics’ entry was “technical and frank” being a “strong entry with a holistic approach to the whole life cycle of its operations,” setting a good benchmark and that they were hellishly “impressed by the positioning of the Group’s environmental efforts at the cutting edge of international research, and within the context of the Millennium Development Goals.”

Comment: Nice one, that logistics giant. It takes a particular type of courage to dust off the old business model and ask oneself the hard questions.

Some time ago, you will recall, Tiger Brands took Adcock Ingram to court over the labeling on Adock’s TLC camphor cream, which bore, they contested, too striking a resemblance to their own (already confusingly-named), more established Ingram’s Camphor Cream. The South Gauteng High Court has found in favour of the Stripy One, ordering Adcock to “desist from ambush marketing”. While Adcock mounted a spirited defence, questioning the validity of the Ingram’s brand name, the court found that when the business had unbundled from Tiger, it had waived its rights, including goodwill, in respect of the Ingram’s Camphor Cream brand, and had been generously compensated for these rights.

Comment: With 82% of the camphor cream market, and sales of 12 million jars in 2010, Tiger would be a little litigious.

Last weekend, SABMiller made an offer to purchase Foster’s, brewer of an eponymous thin and tasteless liquid in Australia, where their tolerance for such beverages is high, for the sum of R71billion honest South African rands, an offer the hastily-convened Foster’s board rejected as being on the risible side. No worries, though – the Foster’s share price jumped on the news, presumably because the punters are expecting that a better offer from SABMiller or some other rival will ensue. There is some interesting speculation abroad that should the Big Boy not succeed in this purchase, SABMiller will itself become the target of acquisition by Annheuser Bush, currently the biggest brewer in the world.

Comment: Foster’s would be a coup for our home boys, owning as it does seven out of Australia’s top ten beer brands.

As of August 17, when new regulations come into effect, you will no longer be able to indulge in the guilty pleasures of artificial trans-fats, even consensually and in the privacy of your own home. While some trans-fats occur naturally in meat or dairy, and those you will still be able to imbibe of liberally, the new regulations refer to those trans-fats that are made artificially through a chemical process of partially hydrogenating vegetable oil to turn it into a semi-solid substance like margarine. Trans-fats in general are said to increase the risk of heart disease. Woolies took trans-fats off the shelves in the year 7, while Pick n Pay and Shoprite assure us that their stores will be artificial trans-fat free by the stipulated (ahem) date.

Comment: Whereafter, one assumes, you will have to go across our borders for your artificial trans-fats, in products suspiciously close to their sell-by dates.

Pick n Pay will be opening three new shopping centres in Mauritius namely at Mont Choisy shopping centre in the North, Cascavelle shopping centre in the West and Bagatelle, Mall of Mauritius in the centre of the Island. Of course, over there they call it le Pick n Pay.

Unilever was voted number one graduate employer in SA by the South African Graduate Recruiters’ Association (SAGRA), who also named le Grand Bleu the 4th most aspirational employer to work for, with KPMG coming in first. Unilever will shortly be embarking on its annual campus roadshow to recruit the brightest and the best into the service of its many, many brands.