While cannabis use remains taboo among some South Africans, an increasing number of consumers are becoming more accepting regarding its use. More specifically, legalisation, government support, and the potential economic advantages offered by the South African cannabis market, have led to the increased legitimisation of cannabis and cannabis-based products. Furthermore, South Africans are becoming increasingly educated around the use of cannabis and are more easily able to safely grow their own cannabis, rather than acquiring it from questionable sources. 14 Feb 2022
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Proudly South African has hailed the fact that for the third consecutive year, President Cyril Ramaphosa made localisation a significant part of his State of the Nation address. 14 Feb 2022
Checkers cleverly wove pop culture into the grocery retail experience last week by pouncing on the Tinder Swindler hype and grouping products on its Sixty60 shopping app around key moments and themes from the popular Netflix documentary. 14 Feb 2022
Africa's biggest premium beer brand, Castle Lite is excited to announce that they are hitting the refresh button in 2022 with a new-look shrink and tray design across all its packs. The brand, which had its last update in 2018, had the new packaging hitting shelves at licensed outlets across the country early this year. 11 Feb 2022
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Authentic Brands Group has appointed Bounty Apparel as the sole distributor for Reebok in South Africa and countries within the SADC. This follows the recent €2.1bn ($2.46bn) takeover of Reebok by Authentic Brands from Adidas, which aims to focus on its core brand instead. 11 Feb 2022
Seeds of Change finalists 2021. Source: Supplied
Fresh produce retailer Food Lover's Market has resumed its search for promising social entrepreneurs to join the company as a supplier. This follows the success of the 2021 Seeds of Change Supplier Development Partnership launched last year, which attracted close to 900 applications. 11 Feb 2022
South Africa's rural areas are often overlooked when it comes to innovative services like grocery delivery apps. Spotting this unmet need, Siyanda Mthethwa founded mobile app Kuloola to improve the lives of people in rural areas and create employment opportunities for youth. 11 Feb 2022
Nando's has opened entries to its fourth Hot Young Designer (HYD) talent search, which seeks to unearth innovative new designs for Nando's restaurants around the world, and fire up the careers of emerging local creatives. 10 Feb 2022
Independent lab tests have cleared local sweets manufacturer Richester Foods of claims that its Xpop Energy Red Dragon lollipops had caused a group of children in Kwazulu-Natal to fall ill. 10 Feb 2022
According to newly released research, South African online retailers have learned to meet the demands of Black Friday and the Christmas season, with nine out of ten saying they coped with extra staffing demands and more than two-thirds saying their technology could handle the increased traffic at the end of 2021. 10 Feb 2022
The manufacturing industry is aggressively tackling the task of rebuilding what the last two years have disrupted. In spite of labour shortages and supply chain instability, the US is seeing industrial production and capacity utilisation overtaking pre-pandemic levels, and there is an upward trend in new orders for all major sectors. This is according to Deloitte's recent analysis of the manufacturing industry's outlook for 2022. 9 Feb 2022
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Global nutrition business, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), has acquired South African flavour distributor Comhan, growing its reach and footprint in the high-growth African market. 9 Feb 2022
After completing the Youth Employment Service programme with Shoprite in September 2021, Anelisa Mlondi was offered an employment contract by the retailer and now works as a cashier at Shoprite Kraaifontein. Source: Supplied
The Shoprite Group, South Africa's largest private sector employer with over 140,000 direct employees, created an additional 4,608 jobs during its past financial year, despite the effects of the lockdown and unrest on retail trade. 9 Feb 2022
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The metaverse could be a market worth $800bn by 2024, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Although not a new concept and with a long road ahead, the word "metaverse" has been on everyone's lips since Facebook rebranded itself as Meta and thus positioned itself as a major player in the new virtual world. 9 Feb 2022
Despite the fact that many retail categories saw large sales decline during the Covid-19 pandemic, one category to buck this trend was the pet food and pet care categories which saw only a small decline in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, reveals a recently released BMi Research report. 8 Feb 2022
Ahead of Valentine's Day, Woolworths has announced that achieved it's achieved its 100% responsibly sourced cocoa goal. This means that all its branded chocolate and cocoa products from breakfast cereals, hot drinks, yoghurts and milkshakes to biscuits, cakes and desserts now contain only responsibly sourced cocoa. 8 Feb 2022
Prominent décor, design and lifestyle exhibition Decorex Africa is being relaunched with a new brand identity, location and enhanced virtual features. 8 Feb 2022
Lactalis Group CEO Philippe Palazzi has left the French multinational dairy corporation as of 3 February, due to a "disagreement over strategy", the company said in a statement to Food Dive. 8 Feb 2022
Savanna fans have recently found it harder to get their hands on their favourite, premium, crisp and dry cider brand due to a global supply chain crisis compounded by shipping delays. The enormous love and support from South Africans resulted in a situation where the brand doubled in size in the last twelve months, creating significant pressure on demand and supply. Savanna continued to work around the clock to produce and supply millions of litres of the iconic cider to customers and consumers each week, but some fans still noticed their brand selling out fast and missing from fridges and shelves. 8 Feb 2022
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Simply put, digital transformation is needed to secure a competitive edge in the consumer goods space. Even before the pandemic hit, consumer goods companies were dealing with more suppliers, faster product development cycles and more demanding consumers than ever before. 7 Feb 2022
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