It is painful to remember the good from the past.

In the 1980s, you could walk into the Rosebank Mall, or later on, the branch in Fourways Mall, and find an Edgars store. In those stores, you could find excellent clothes—particularly if you were a man. They had a truly outstanding range of shoes. I can’t remember all the brand names now, but that is exactly where I bought mine. It was the place where you went when you needed to buy a proper suit and tie.

Then there was Stuttafords, an even older institution than Edgars, known for generations as the “Harrods of South Africa”. Today, there are none left in the country. The last one I remember was in the Cresta Center.

It was tragic when the final South African Stuttafords stores closed their doors for good in August 2017. Today, only one lone, independent survivor remains across the border in Windhoek, Namibia, operating out of The Grove Mall.

The Silent corporate “Warts-and-All”

The trouble with these corporate stories is that you rarely get to the absolute truth. When a company is doing well, you get plenty of polished corporate “upward” stories. The one that comes to mind is Larger Than Life, the story of Liberty Life’s founder Donald Gordon, beautifully written by that excellent, dignified business writer Ken Romain back in 1989. It laid out the details of Gordon’s formidable life, but it was still an authorized corporate biography.

The only book I can think of that showed the true “warts and all” of a corporate demise was On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, written by Detroit journalist J. Patrick Wright about John DeLorean. DeLorean actually tried to block the book’s publication for years because it got too close to the bone. It is precisely because those books get near the truth that they are so excellent.

You can find a number of brilliant books written on the demise of department stores in America, Great Britain, and Europe—but you won’t find a detailed post-mortem like that for our own lost giants here in South Africa.

A Nostalgia for Grand Spaces

I suppose I hold a deep nostalgia for those old department stores. You could find absolutely anything you wanted in them. For the ladies, there were those massive, glamorous perfume counters and racks of luxury clothing.

The decline of institutions like Edgars, Stuttafords, and even CNA—which has virtually vanished from our malls after entering business rescue in 2021—was driven by complex forces. The political and economic transition of the mid-1990s changed our demographics and shopping patterns rapidly. Then came global shocks like the 2008 financial crisis. With the local currency taking a heavy hammering, the cost of importing high-end brands for these department stores simply became too expensive.
Yet, some smaller department stores stubbornly soldier on.

Down in Fish Hoek, we have AP Jones. It actually started in 1928—making it a year older than Edgars itself! It is just a single store catering to a very small, loyal local consumer base. They recently revamped the space to keep it relevant for modern times. It’s a tough environment, and when family-run businesses eventually pass down through the generations, you always wonder what will happen.
But the family keeps AP Jones going because of a deep-seated pride and history. In fact, the founder, Albert Pascoe Jones, actually worked for Garlicks before opening his own shop! Can you believe that? Garlicks was another legendary department store of the Cape. The very last Garlicks store closed its doors in Cape Town in February 1993, over three decades ago.

The Soul of the Store

Let’s be clear: the old Edgars and Stuttafords stores were top-notch. I have been into famous department stores in the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, and France, but nothing quite compared to the feeling of walking into those grand, flagship Edgars and Stuttafords branches in their prime. They were special, and they catered beautifully to the well-heeled top end of the market.

Of course, if you wanted to buy a decent, everyday suit years ago, you could go to Woolworths in Sandton City for a much cheaper price. But if you really wanted to look dashing, you had to go to Edgars or Stuttafords. Yes, the early 1980s had plenty of fantastic boutique men’s shops in downtown Johannesburg and great clothing stores in Hillbrow, but they were small. Nothing matched the sheer scale and presence of the big department stores.

Part of the tragedy of Edgars—and particularly CNA—was the arrival of global private equity giants like Bain Capital. They saddled these businesses with immense debt to finance their buyouts. That is the inherent risk of private equity; they take ownership of a brand, but they don’t always understand the unique soul of running a retail operation on the ground.

When I was reporting on business in the early 1980s, Edgars was owned by South African Breweries (SAB). The CEO back then was Sydney Press—a legendary pioneer of South African retail whose name many have now forgotten. Under his steady hand, the heart of the empire beat at their famous head office, Edgar Dale, south of Johannesburg.

Now, I see that Edgars is embarking on a new expansion program. But these won’t be the sprawling, multi-level retail palaces of old. They are opening smaller, fit-for-purpose community stores. They still have about 100 mainline stores, and they even plan to roll out cellular formats. How well those will work in today’s landscape remains to be seen, but it is happening.

It is heartening news that Edgars is still alive, fighting, and adapting. Hats off to them, and let’s hope they make a great go of it in what is a very tough South African market.

I was paging through the latest edition of The Economist when a small, deceptively simple chart caught my eye. It asked a question we all answer every day, often without thinking:

Whose opinions do you trust?

The results were fascinating.

At the very top of the list were nurses, trusted by well over 80% of people surveyed in Britain. Close behind were your own GP and, somewhat surprisingly, historians. Weather forecasters have also climbed the rankings as forecasting technology has become far more accurate.

At the very bottom?

No surprises there.

Politicians.

Only a tiny percentage of respondents said they trusted what politicians had to say. Given the often wide gap between promises and performance, perhaps that should come as no surprise.

What intrigued me most, however, wasn’t who came last. It was why nurses consistently came first.

Think about it.

A doctor diagnoses your illness and decides on a course of treatment. But once that diagnosis has been made, much of your care is in the hands of a nurse. A good nurse notices subtle changes before they become major problems. They administer treatment, provide reassurance when you’re anxious and often spend far more time with patients than doctors do.

In many ways, nurses are the people who transform medical knowledge into healing.

Perhaps that’s why they enjoy such extraordinary levels of public trust.

The chart also made me wonder how other professions would fare.

Where would consultants rank? Business leaders? Financial planners? Journalists? Social media influencers?

Recent international surveys suggest that business leaders and bankers attract considerably less trust than healthcare professionals. Journalists have also seen trust decline over the years. Social media influencers fare particularly badly, despite attracting millions of followers every day.

That last point is an interesting paradox. We may consume someone’s content every day without actually trusting what they say.

Weather forecasters provide another fascinating example. A decade ago, many people regarded forecasts with a healthy dose of scepticism. Today, advances in satellite technology, computing power and forecasting models have made predictions much more reliable. As accuracy has improved, so has public trust.

Perhaps that’s the real lesson.

Trust isn’t built through clever marketing, polished presentations or the loudest voice in the room. It is earned quietly through competence, consistency and genuinely caring about the people you serve.

Whether you’re a nurse, a consultant, a journalist, a financial planner or a business owner, people eventually judge you by one thing: do your words match your actions?

If I had to compile my own list, nurses would almost certainly be at the top.

What about you?

Who would make your top five?

And who wouldn’t make the list at all?

Editorial Disclosure & Disclaimer

Financial News Daily is an independent business news syndicate and a wholly owned subsidiary of Idea Accelerator. We specialize in producing high-quality financial, environmental, and corporate news commentary for digital platforms, media outlets, and organizations. Financial News Daily does not provide investment, legal, or financial advice. Opinions expressed represent bona fide media commentary on matters of public and economic interest.

South Africa’s manufacturing output fell by 4.3% in the second quarter of 2026. That is the headline. But the real story lies beneath the numbers.

It would be comforting to blame the decline on weak global demand, a slow economy or another temporary downturn. Unfortunately, that would ignore what has been happening to manufacturing for many years. The latest figures are not an isolated setback. They are another sign of an industry that has been steadily losing its ability to compete.

The uncomfortable truth is that South Africa has been drifting towards deindustrialisation for a long time.

Manufacturing has always mattered because it creates value. It transforms raw materials into finished products, supports skilled employment, drives innovation and stimulates dozens of other sectors, from transport and engineering to business services. Countries that have built lasting prosperity have almost always developed strong manufacturing bases.

South Africa once had one of the most diversified manufacturing sectors on the African continent. Today that advantage is steadily eroding.

The reasons are hardly a mystery.

Electricity remains one of the biggest burdens. Manufacturers depend on reliable, affordable power. Instead they have faced years of escalating tariffs, supply interruptions and uncertainty. Even though load shedding has eased, electricity costs continue to rise well above inflation. For energy-intensive industries such as steel, metals and chemicals, that is enough to wipe out already thin profit margins.

Then comes the challenge of moving goods.

Factories cannot survive if raw materials arrive late or finished products sit for days waiting to leave congested ports. South Africa’s deteriorating rail network, inefficient ports and ageing road infrastructure have steadily pushed logistics costs higher. Every additional delay makes locally produced goods less competitive against imports arriving from countries with far more efficient supply chains.

These rising costs are squeezing manufacturers from every direction.

But there is another problem that receives less attention.

South Africa appears to have lost much of its competitive edge. Research by Harvard’s Growth Lab has pointed to a long-term decline in the country’s manufacturing exports, suggesting that this is not simply another business cycle but a structural weakening of the sector itself.

Employment figures tell a similar story. Manufacturing employed around 1.4 million people in 2005. By 2021 that number had fallen to roughly 1.09 million. That represents more than 300,000 jobs disappearing from one of the sectors traditionally capable of creating skilled and semi-skilled employment.

Many of those jobs have not been replaced by new industries. Instead, South Africa has become increasingly dependent on imported manufactured goods that local factories once produced themselves.

Some argue that globalisation made this inevitable. There is certainly some truth in that. Manufacturers everywhere have had to compete with lower-cost producers, particularly in Asia.

However, many countries have adapted by improving productivity, investing in infrastructure, modernising factories and creating policy certainty. South Africa has struggled on all four fronts.

Government has not been entirely absent. The automotive industry demonstrates that targeted support can produce internationally competitive manufacturing. Yet success in one sector has not translated into a broader industrial revival. Too much of manufacturing has been left to cope with rising costs, unreliable infrastructure, regulatory uncertainty and weak domestic demand.

Picking a handful of winners is not the same as building a resilient manufacturing economy.

Yet it would be unfair to paint the entire manufacturing landscape with the same brush. There are still pockets of excellence proving that South African manufacturers can compete with the best in the world. Alberton-based Van Tuyl Kilns is one such example. The company has built a successful export business supplying specialised industrial kilns to Australia and other international markets. It has done so by focusing on engineering excellence, product quality and customer service while continuing to manufacture locally despite the familiar challenges of rising electricity costs and logistics bottlenecks. Companies like this demonstrate that South Africa is not short of engineering talent or entrepreneurial spirit. What it lacks is an environment in which many more manufacturers can achieve similar success.

The concern is not simply that factories are producing less this year. It is that South Africa risks losing capabilities that are extremely difficult to rebuild once they disappear. When factories close, skills are lost, supplier networks break apart, investment dries up and younger workers look elsewhere for opportunities.

Reindustrialisation is possible, but it becomes more expensive and more difficult the longer decline is allowed to continue.

That is why the latest manufacturing figures deserve more attention than they have received. They are not simply another disappointing economic statistic. They are another warning that the country’s productive base continues to weaken.

Without reliable and competitively priced electricity, efficient transport infrastructure, policy certainty and a renewed commitment to improving productivity, South Africa will continue importing more of what it once made itself.

The 4.3% decline is therefore not the story.

It is merely the latest crack in a foundation that has been weakening for years.

Editorial Disclosure & Disclaimer

Financial News Daily is an independent business news syndicate and a wholly owned subsidiary of Idea Accelerator. We specialize in producing high-quality financial, environmental, and corporate news commentary for digital platforms, media outlets, and organizations. Financial News Daily does not provide investment, legal, or financial advice. Opinions expressed represent bona fide media commentary on matters of public and economic interest.

Let’s be honest: walking into a bottle store these days feels less like buying a drink and more like decoding a cryptic treasure map written by a committee of marketing interns on a sugar rush. You’re standing there, clutching a Merlot because you know you like Merlot, but suddenly your eyes glaze over. There’s a gold medallion. A silver star. A little plaque that says “John Platter’s Wine Guide 202X” – and you’re left wondering: Is this thing still valid?

I usually pride myself on ignoring these shiny little ego-boosters. I’m a free spirit. But yesterday, I found myself staring at a bottle of fortified wine I’d never tried before, and I caved. I squinted at the stars. I counted them. I whispered to myself, “Well, if it’s got all these little gold stickers on it, it simply must not be poison.” And I bought it.
Then, just to prove I have no moral backbone, I recently bought a Portuguese port. Proper stuff. Came straight from the motherland. No stars, no stickers, no awards, no Platter’s anywhere. Just a bottle looking at me with naked, honest ambiguity. Without the stickers, I was forced to actually talk to the staff at the liquor store.

Now, these staff members are a fascinating breed. They stand there, arms folded, looking like they’ve personally aged every barrel in the back. But let’s be real: have they cracked open that specific bottle of port? Probably not. They’re local experts purely by geographical proximity to the shelf. Ask them about a 2018 Cab and they’ll give you a soliloquy; ask them if the port is sickly sweet and they’ll just repeat the price.

Some people say, “The best wine is the one you’re holding in your hand.”
What a magnificently useless piece of advice! That’s like saying the best car is the one parked in your driveway. Thanks, I’ll just sip my mystery liquid and trust the universe. That glass in your hand could have come from a snobbish wine blog, a vintner in Kloof Street, Cape Town, a random bin at Checkers, or Norman Goodfellows. Where did it come from? I guess if you’re holding it, you either drink it or toss it. The choice is yours.

I went to a wine tasting festival in Simon’s Town a while back. You had the Serious Swirlers, the Aggressive Sniffers, the ones who gargle the wine like mouthwash while holding intense eye contact with their partners, and then the ceremonial spitting into buckets. Followed by a cheese nibble, a water rinse, and a sage nod to the heavens.
It’s fun. But it illustrates that wine is entirely subjective. One person’s “elegant bouquet of blackcurrant and oak” is another person’s “grape juice that tastes like my grandfather’s shed.” Some people swear by the cheapest plonk they can find.

I’m the wayback machine wine was cheap. A friend would say, “Try this,” and we’d buy a bottle, drink it over a weekend, and decide we were connoisseurs. Tastes change, of course. One month you’re into soft Merlots; the next you’re on a Pinotage because you had a steak.

These days, wine prices are enough to lower your spirits. You can’t afford to experiment bottle-to-bottle like a mad scientist anymore. Which brings us back to the dilemma: we actually need a guide.
But then you pick up the John Platter’s guide and it reads like a phonebook for snobs. Or you download Vivino, and lo and behold—neither the port nor the fortified wine I just bought even exist on there.

And here’s the real trick of the trade: Eye-level shelves. That’s where they plant the expensive ones. R140 to R300+ just staring you down, judging your bank balance. You may have to lower your gaze to the bottom shelf. There, hiding in shame, you might find an odd special.

Right now, two guys I know are driving up to Sutherland—the coldest place in South Africa, where the air hurts your face. They’re going for work, but their primary concern isn’t the job; it’s what liquid fuel they’ll buy to keep warm in the hotel that night.

Winter changes the rules. Suddenly it’s all red wines, ports, certified wines, gluewein, and hot toddies. Anything to warm the soul while you’re wrapped in a blanket questioning your life choices.

So, at the end of the day, do you trust the stars, the stickers, and the Platter’s plaques?

Honestly? They’re slightly better than a blind guess. They’re the horoscopes of the wine world—vague enough to apply to everyone, shiny enough to convince you it means something.
Thank goodness we have them, though. Because without those little gold medallions, how would we ever pick a bottle? We’d have to rely on the staff. And we all know they haven’t tried it either.

Raise your glass to the stickers—they’re trying their best. Even if that five-star rating came from a panel that tasted it after a heavy lunch.

Editorial Disclosure & Disclaimer

Financial News Daily is an independent business news syndicate and a wholly owned subsidiary of Idea Accelerator. We specialize in producing high-quality financial, environmental, and corporate news commentary for digital platforms, media outlets, and organizations. Financial News Daily does not provide investment, legal, or financial advice. Opinions expressed represent bona fide media commentary on matters of public and economic interest.

I had to laugh the other day.

I was walking past a Mr Price store when two words jumped out at me from the window display: “Skateboard Jeans.”

Skateboard jeans? Really?

I looked at the photo. They looked like… well… jeans. Perfectly ordinary jeans. But apparently they weren’t just jeans. They were skateboard jeans.

Now I live in an area where there are plenty of skateboarders. Young men, young women and even roller skaters spend hours at the local skate park.

Do you know what they wear?

Whatever happens to be in the cupboard.

Old jeans. Shorts. Tracksuit pants. T-shirts. Hoodies. I’ve never once heard anyone say, “I can’t skate today because I forgot my skateboard jeans.”

It reminded me how clever marketing can be.

I remember when surfwear first became fashionable. At the beginning it was little more than a white T-shirt with a surfboard manufacturer’s logo on it. Before long there were baggies, caps, hoodies, jackets, sandals and every imaginable accessory.

The funny thing was that much of this clothing was being bought hundreds of kilometres from the nearest beach. Johannesburg, Kimberley and Bloemfontein were hardly surfing hotspots, yet surfwear became a lifestyle.

Now skateboarding has followed the same path.

Years ago skateboarders were regarded as scruffy teenagers hanging around shopping centres, smoking cigarettes, grinding along kerbs and generally annoying security guards.

Today skateboarding is an Olympic sport, and the fashion industry has embraced it with open arms.

When I became curious, I searched Google and discovered that even Levi’s sells skateboard jeans. That surprised me. This is clearly far more than a passing fad.

In South Africa, the broader denim jeans market is worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and skateboard jeans have become one of many niche styles riding that wave. The jeans are only the beginning.

Next come the skateboard hoodies.

Skateboard beanies.

Skateboard jackets.

Skateboard socks.

Skateboard backpacks.

Once a trend takes hold, there’s no end to the products that can be attached to it.

And don’t be surprised if one day you see a grandmother wearing skateboard jeans. These days plenty of grandmothers proudly display tattoos that would make many youngsters jealous, so skateboard jeans may not be such a stretch after all.

The real lesson isn’t about jeans.

It’s about markets.

Successful entrepreneurs don’t simply sell products. They sell identity. People aren’t always buying a pair of jeans. Sometimes they’re buying the feeling of belonging to a tribe.

Today it’s skateboard jeans.

Tomorrow it will be something else.

The entrepreneurs who spot the next trend early are usually the ones smiling all the way to the bank.

Editorial Disclosure & Disclaimer

Financial News Daily is an independent business news syndicate and a wholly owned subsidiary of Idea Accelerator. We specialize in producing high-quality financial, environmental, and corporate news commentary for digital platforms, media outlets, and organizations. Financial News Daily does not provide investment, legal, or financial advice. Opinions expressed represent bona fide media commentary on matters of public and economic interest.

We keep hearing reports about the decline of fishing along South Africa’s West Coast. Every new announcement seems to point to the same uncomfortable reality: there are fewer fish, smaller catches and increasing pressure on an industry that has sustained coastal communities for generations.

Recent events have brought that reality into sharp focus. Two Oceana fish canning plants at Laaiplek and St Helena Bay were temporarily consolidated after the annual fresh pelagic quota had already been caught, leaving insufficient fish to keep both factories operating normally. Although a later increase in the sardine quota eased the immediate crisis, it also exposed just how fragile the industry has become.

For many people, the discussion revolves around quotas, but quotas are really just the symptom. The deeper problem is that we have spent decades extracting more and more from the sea. For much of the twentieth century the oceans seemed like an endless resource. We fished harder, built bigger vessels and developed increasingly efficient technology. It was a little like mining a rich ore body while assuming it would never run out.

South Africa is far from alone. Around the world, fishing grounds that once seemed inexhaustible have declined. Atlantic cod stocks collapsed. The California sardine industry, immortalised in John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, virtually disappeared after years of overfishing. Many countries are now grappling with the same difficult balance between protecting jobs today and preserving fish stocks for tomorrow.

What makes this story so personal is that it is unfolding only a few hundred kilometres from Cape Town.

I visited Port Nolloth several years ago. What struck me was how quiet the harbour had become. It felt like a shadow of the bustling fishing town it once was. Whether that reflected the season or longer-term decline, the impression stayed with me.

Closer to home, many recreational anglers say catches in False Bay are nowhere near what they once were. Snoek and yellowtail appear less predictable than in years gone by. Commercial fishing, small-scale fishing, environmental change and shifting ocean conditions all play their part, but the overall picture is one of increasing pressure on marine resources.

The consequences extend well beyond the boats. Every reduction in catches affects factory workers, truck drivers, suppliers, retailers and entire coastal towns whose economies depend on fishing. When factories slow production because there is insufficient fish to process, the ripple effects spread through the whole community.

Marine scientists and fisheries managers face an almost impossible task. They must balance conservation with livelihoods, while making decisions in an environment where fish populations naturally fluctuate and climate change is altering ocean ecosystems. There are no easy answers.

Aquaculture may eventually become part of the solution, but it cannot replace the cultural and economic importance of traditional wild fisheries overnight.

Perhaps what concerns me most is that today’s headlines are no longer isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern that has been developing for decades. Each year brings another reminder that the ocean’s resources are not limitless.

Ignore those limits for long enough and abundance slowly gives way to scarcity.

The West Coast was once a coastline of bays of plenty. Today, too many are becoming bays of empty.

Editorial Disclosure & Disclaimer

Financial News Daily is an independent business news syndicate and a wholly owned subsidiary of Idea Accelerator. We specialize in producing high-quality financial, environmental, and corporate news commentary for digital platforms, media outlets, and organizations. Financial News Daily does not provide investment, legal, or financial advice. Opinions expressed represent bona fide media commentary on matters of public and economic interest.

It would be great to write a piece on how operational excellence can be improved through a vigorous safety culture. After all, the world’s leading manufacturers have long understood that safe workplaces are productive workplaces. Employees who feel safe are generally more engaged, quality improves, downtime falls, and continuous improvement becomes far easier to achieve.

But unfortunately, after looking into South Africa’s safety record, I realised we have a far bigger problem.

Before we can talk about operational excellence, we first have to talk about basic safety.

And when I say safety, I’m talking about far more than factories. I’m talking about government buildings, municipal facilities, roads, hospitals, construction sites and workplaces generally. In too many places, safety has become an afterthought rather than a way of life.

Walk around almost any government- or municipal-owned community facility and the warning signs are often obvious. Fire extinguishers are years past their service dates. Emergency exits are poorly marked or obstructed. Routine maintenance is neglected. These may seem like small matters, but they reveal something much bigger: a culture where safety is too often treated as somebody else’s problem.

Before getting into what is happening across the country, I want to make an observation about ordinary tradespeople.

During the refurbishment of my property in Cape Town, I worked with a wide variety of contractors. Getting reliable tradespeople was often difficult, and communication could sometimes be frustrating. Yet one thing struck me.

Most of them worked safely.

Why?

Because it is their livelihood.

You seldom find them working without gloves or handling ladders carelessly. Some simply refuse to climb onto roofs because they know they lack the experience and don’t want to risk their lives. Others clean up meticulously before leaving a site. They understand that one serious injury could leave them unable to work for weeks or months.

Unlike employees of large corporations, many have no pension to fall back on, limited unemployment protection and no generous medical aid. In a dystopian, non-utopian country where so much else is uncertain, their own safety is one of the few things they can still control.

That simple reality creates a stronger safety mindset than many organisations manage to build through endless policies and procedures.

Unfortunately, when we widen the lens to South Africa as a whole, the picture becomes deeply disturbing.

South Africa continues to record one of the highest road fatality rates in the world, with well over 9,000 people dying on our roads each year. Driver behaviour—speeding, reckless driving and alcohol abuse—remains the primary cause of most crashes. Crime continues to shape how people live their daily lives, with many South Africans unwilling to walk alone at night because they simply do not feel safe.

In healthcare, studies continue to point to weaknesses in patient safety culture, while many workplaces, particularly smaller businesses, struggle to implement even the most basic safety systems.

Then there is government.

Here the situation becomes even more alarming.

The George building collapse, the Verulam collapse and the more recent Ormonde disaster all exposed what investigators have repeatedly described as systemic failures rather than isolated accidents. Warning signs were missed. Regulations were ignored. Oversight failed.

Even government’s own buildings tell a worrying story. The evacuation of the SAPS Telkom Towers headquarters because of serious health and safety concerns, together with hundreds of neglected or abandoned state-owned buildings, speaks volumes about the condition of public assets.

The issue is no longer whether South Africa has enough legislation.

It does.

The real problem is that too often we fail to enforce it consistently.

When rules become optional, accidents become inevitable.

The private sector presents a more mixed picture.

Large manufacturers and mining companies generally employ experienced occupational health and safety managers, conduct regular audits and maintain formal safety systems. Some organisations have developed world-class safety cultures that rival the very best internationally.

But even here, safety is too often driven by compliance rather than conviction.

It becomes another audit to pass.

Another inspection to survive.

Another file to complete.

That is not a safety culture.

A genuine safety culture exists when every employee, from the managing director to the newest apprentice, genuinely believes that nobody should go home injured at the end of the day.

The challenge becomes even greater among many small and medium-sized businesses. Government simply does not have the capacity to inspect every factory, warehouse and workshop across the country. Many operate for years with little or no meaningful oversight.

I remember looking across Cape Town one morning and seeing two factories burning in Paarden Eiland. That evening I learnt that both had suffered major fires. Similar incidents occur in Johannesburg, Durban and elsewhere with depressing regularity.

Meanwhile, product quality across many sectors appears to be deteriorating. Personally, I have bought an astonishing number of faulty products over the past few years, from everyday foodstuffs to furniture and tools. That decline in quality deserves an article of its own.

The point is that operational excellence does not suddenly appear because a company adopts the latest management philosophy.

It begins with discipline.

It begins with doing the ordinary things consistently well.

And nowhere is that more evident than in safety.

The irony is that companies with mature safety cultures rarely speak only about safety. They speak about quality, productivity, continuous improvement, employee engagement and customer satisfaction as well. They understand that these are not separate objectives. They reinforce one another.

A safe workplace is usually a better organised workplace.

A better organised workplace usually produces better products.

Better products create happier customers.

That is the pathway to operational excellence.

South Africa will undoubtedly get there in some organisations. Many outstanding companies already demonstrate what is possible.

But as a country, we are not there yet.

Before safety can become a competitive advantage, it must first become a national habit. Before operational excellence becomes commonplace, safe work practices must become non-negotiable.

In a dystopian, non-utopian society where standards have slipped in too many areas of public life, the great awakening must begin with something surprisingly simple: getting the basics right.

Only then can safety become more than compliance.

Only then can it become the foundation upon which genuine operational excellence is built.

Editorial Disclosure & Disclaimer

Financial News Daily is an independent business news syndicate and a wholly owned subsidiary of Idea Accelerator. We specialize in producing high-quality financial, environmental, and corporate news commentary for digital platforms, media outlets, and organizations. Financial News Daily does not provide investment, legal, or financial advice. Opinions expressed represent bona fide media commentary on matters of public and economic interest.

When I was at high school, the subject I enjoyed most was science.

We had an excellent science master. Like many science teachers of that era, he looked a little like the absent-minded professor. His demonstrations occasionally went wrong, which only made the lessons more memorable. He had a wonderful ability to make science exciting and to open our minds to possibilities we had never considered.

In the end, however, I gravitated towards English. We had an equally brilliant English teacher and, after completing my compulsory National Service in the Navy, I joined South African Associated Newspapers as a cadet journalist.

Even then, I noticed something.

The people who were really “coining it” weren’t journalists. They were the programmers, systems analysts and computer specialists. Companies such as Van Zyl and Pritchard were constantly searching for talented people. If you had an aptitude for computers and mathematics, you could look forward to an exciting and well-paid career.

That was decades ago.

Today, the demand has become even greater.

Artificial intelligence, robotics, automation and advanced manufacturing are reshaping almost every industry. Yet an interesting article I recently read argued that we are still thinking about STEM in yesterday’s terms. The author suggested that we are mislabelling STEM because the definition has become far broader than most people realise.

I think the same applies in South Africa.

For many people, STEM still means science, technology, engineering and mathematics leading to a university degree.

That is no longer the whole story.

Today’s STEM world includes artificial intelligence, robotics, coding, cybersecurity, automation, renewable energy, drone technology, advanced manufacturing and many other technical careers that barely existed a generation ago. Vocational and technical education are every bit as important as traditional academic routes.

Some years ago, I became involved with a company that actively supported STEM initiatives. That gave me the opportunity to meet many of the people working in this field, including senior government officials. I sometimes came away with the impression that even those responsible for shaping policy didn’t fully appreciate just how rapidly technology was changing the nature of STEM itself.

South Africa has certainly made progress.

More learners are taking mathematics and science, and technical education is receiving greater recognition than it once did.

But I believe we’re still missing the bigger opportunity.

South Africa isn’t short of talented young people.

It’s short of opportunities.

For millions of youngsters, life can feel uncomfortably close to a dystopia. Poverty, unemployment, crime and struggling schools can make the future seem bleak. STEM alone will not transform that dystopia into a utopia, but it can provide a pathway out of poverty for thousands of talented young people in our cities, townships and the remotest rural communities.

There is another lesson we could learn.

Look at rugby.

Talent scouts travel the country looking for promising youngsters. Families willingly relocate so gifted players can attend schools with better coaching and facilities.

I know of one family that did exactly that. Their exceptionally talented 14-year-old son moved with his family to the Western Cape so he could receive specialised rugby coaching and schooling.

We applaud that commitment.

So why don’t we do something similar for STEM?

Why aren’t we identifying gifted young programmers, roboticists, engineers and innovators while they are still at school?

Why aren’t we creating the same pathways that exist for sporting talent?

If you’re reading this article on a smartphone or laptop, you’re already holding more computing power than entire research laboratories possessed only a few decades ago.

Technology isn’t coming.

It’s already here.

The challenge is no longer convincing young people that STEM matters.

The challenge is helping them understand that STEM has become far bigger, more creative and more exciting than most of us ever imagined.

South Africa’s future won’t depend only on producing more accountants, lawyers or politicians.

It will also depend on the young people who design the next generation of software, robots, medical technology, renewable energy systems and businesses that we cannot yet imagine.

The earlier we identify that talent and nurture it, the brighter South Africa’s future will be.

Perhaps what South Africa really needs are STEM scouts.

Just as rugby scouts travel the country looking for gifted young players, we should be searching every school, township and rural village for children with exceptional aptitude in mathematics, science, coding, robotics and engineering. Imagine the difference that could make to thousands of young lives—and to South Africa’s future.

Further reading

The article that prompted many of these thoughts is The Manufacturing Workforce Isn’t Missing—It’s Mislabeled. Although it focuses on manufacturing in the United States, its central argument applies equally well to South Africa: our understanding of STEM has not kept pace with technology.

https://www.industryweek.com/talent/education-training/article/55386132/the-manufacturing-workforce-isnt-missingits-mislabeled

Editorial Disclosure & Disclaimer

Financial News Daily is an independent business news syndicate and a wholly owned subsidiary of Idea Accelerator. We specialize in producing high-quality financial, environmental, and corporate news commentary for digital platforms, media outlets, and organizations. Financial News Daily does not provide investment, legal, or financial advice. Opinions expressed represent bona fide media commentary on matters of public and economic interest.

Factory-manufactured bread sucks.

I don’t eat a lot of bread. I know it isn’t something you should consume in large quantities, so when I do buy it, I want it to be good. I’d much rather pay a rand or two more for a decent loaf than settle for something that has rolled off a giant production line.

Over the years I’ve watched the quality of factory bread decline. I used to buy Sasko’s seed loaf regularly, but somewhere along the line something changed. Sometimes there are huge holes running through the loaf. Other times the crust separates from the bread, or the slices are uneven. Years ago I even complained to Sasko about one particularly poor loaf, and to their credit they sent me vouchers for two replacements.

But vouchers weren’t really the point.

The quality simply isn’t what it used to be.

Perhaps the ingredients have changed. Perhaps production has become even more automated. Manufacturers never tell us these things, so all we can judge is what lands on our plates.

The bread doesn’t taste the same. It doesn’t toast as well. It just feels… cheaper.

The bread industry generally falls into three broad categories.

First there’s industrial bread—the mass-produced loaves made in huge factories where efficiency and consistency come first.

Then there’s semi-industrial or premium bread, which still uses commercial equipment but aims for better recipes, better ingredients and a more artisan feel.

Finally there’s artisan bread—smaller batches, slower fermentation, fewer additives and far more attention to craftsmanship.

That middle category is becoming increasingly interesting.

Quite by accident I discovered Checkers’ Earth Origins range.

I was almost reluctant to mention it because I don’t want everyone rushing off to buy it before I get there.

The sourdough particularly impressed me. There are also smaller loaves containing oats, whole wheat and even a delicious cinnamon-and-date version.

The only problem is they’re produced in fairly limited quantities. Visit my local Checkers after lunch and they’re often sold out.

Here in the Cape the larger loaves sell for around R20, while the smaller ones are about R15. Up in Randburg they’re closer to R28, which probably reflects transport costs.

Whatever the reason, they represent excellent value.

Interestingly, the nearby Shoprite also bakes fresh white bread in-store. They only produce around fifty loaves a day and, if you arrive early enough, you’re rewarded with something many South Africans have almost forgotten.

A warm loaf.

A crisp, golden crust.

Real bread.

I take it home, spread real butter on it while it’s still warm, and that’s a meal in itself.

It reminds you just how satisfying simple food can be when it’s made properly.

Supermarket bakeries are another mixed bag.

Some produce surprisingly good bread. Others seem determined to turn everything into fluffy white loaves regardless of what the label says.

Ciabatta shouldn’t resemble ordinary sandwich bread.

Nor should sourdough taste as though it came from the same production line as everything else.

As for Woolworths, I know many people swear by it.

I’ve tried several of their loaves over the years, but they’ve never really impressed me. They still feel like factory products dressed up as something more wholesome.

That’s becoming a wider problem across the food industry. Packaging tells us we’re buying something rustic, traditional or handcrafted, but too often we’re simply buying another highly processed product wearing a different label.

I recently watched a nutrition expert who suggested avoiding bread containing more than four ingredients. Whether you agree with that exact number or not, the underlying point makes sense.

The simpler the ingredient list, the closer you probably are to real bread.

One friend of mine obtained a genuine sourdough starter from Belgium years ago. He has carefully maintained it ever since and bakes his own bread at home. He doesn’t buy supermarket bread at all.

Once you’ve tasted properly fermented sourdough, it’s easy to understand why.

The challenge, of course, is price.

Independent bakeries generally produce magnificent bread using quality ingredients and traditional methods. The trouble is that many charge between R80 and R100 for a loaf.

That’s beyond the reach of many households.

They’re wonderful businesses, but some risk pricing themselves into a niche market.

Here in Kalk Bay, for example, the famous Olympic Bakery enjoys a loyal following, but few people would describe it as inexpensive.

On the other hand, while I lived in Randburg I was fortunate enough to have a superb French bakery in Blairgowrie. The owner had trained in France before returning to South Africa, and the baguettes and other traditional breads were exceptional.

You could taste the difference.

The lesson is bigger than bread.

Consumers are becoming more selective. They’re increasingly prepared to spend a little more for products that use better ingredients and genuine craftsmanship rather than simply chasing the lowest possible price.

That presents an opportunity.

Small neighbourhood bakeries, family-run businesses and artisan producers may never compete with industrial bakeries on volume. They don’t have to.

They only need to produce bread that reminds people what bread is supposed to taste like.

Editorial Disclosure & Disclaimer

Financial News Daily is an independent business news syndicate and a wholly owned subsidiary of Idea Accelerator. We specialize in producing high-quality financial, environmental, and corporate news commentary for digital platforms, media outlets, and organizations. Financial News Daily does not provide investment, legal, or financial advice. Opinions expressed represent bona fide media commentary on matters of public and economic interest.

We interrupt the usual diet of politics, economics and the financial news to bring you news of the Brazilian alien invasion.

While I was soundly asleep in the early hours of Saturday morning two weeks ago, millions of Brazilians were being startled out of their beds by emergency alerts announcing that aliens had arrived and were invading the country. The messages were convincing enough to frighten many people before the authorities confirmed that the alerts were fake. Hackers had apparently gained access to the emergency warning system and sent out the bogus messages.

These were not vague rumours or prank text messages. They arrived as official “Extreme Alerts”—the same emergency warnings reserved for life-threatening situations. Some phones displayed chilling messages such as: “Protect yourselves: ALIEN ATTACK. Humans, we have arrived!” Others simply declared: “Humans, we have arrived!” Some alerts even contained the mysterious word misantropi4—a hacker’s version of the Portuguese word misantropia, meaning “hatred of humanity”. The alerts began shortly after 1:20 a.m. and reached people across several Brazilian states before the authorities shut down the system about ten minutes later.

The incident began late on Friday, 19 June 2026, and continued into the early hours of Saturday, 20 June 2026.

The first notifications went out around 1:20 AM local time. The system was eventually shut down at approximately 1:30 AM.

What the Alerts Said:

People received “Extreme Alert”-type messages that fell into a few categories:

· Alien Invasion: Messages like “Protect yourselves: ALIEN ATTACK. Humans, we have arrived!” and “Humans, we have arrived!”
· “Misanthropy”: Many alerts contained the Portuguese word “misantropia” (meaning hatred of humanity), sometimes spelled as “misantropi4”.
· Other Disasters: Some warnings mentioned an impending tornado.

Where It Spread:

The alerts reached millions across at least seven cities and five states, including:

· São Paulo
· Rio de Janeiro
· Belo Horizonte
· Brasília (Federal District)
· Paraná
· Pará

Social Media Reactions:

The bizarre alerts quickly went viral across social media:

· Reddit: On r/Brazil, users reacted with dark humor. One user admitted, “I barely slept last night,” while another joked it “sounds like an anime villain just spawned.”
· Facebook & Instagram: People posted screenshots of the notifications. Brazilian influencer Eliezer joked with employees about UFOs coming to take Earth’s resources. Mystic influencer Vó Bahiana (who had predicted a World Cup alien invasion) fueled the frenzy.
· X (Twitter): Users associated the alert with extraterrestrials and a local folklore figure, the ‘ET de Campo Largo’. The word “misantropia” trended on Google.
· Memes: The situation was quickly turned into memes, including one showing different generations’ reactions—from indifferent youth to panicked elderly.

It is one thing to receive a strange text message from an unknown number. It is quite another when your own government’s emergency warning system wakes you in the middle of the night with an “Extreme Alert”. No wonder so many people were alarmed.

The first thought that struck me was just how vulnerable our computerised systems have become. If hackers can infiltrate something as important as a national emergency alert system, it makes one wonder what else is vulnerable.

The second thought was one of déjà vu. It immediately recalled the famous 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, when Orson Welles presented the story as a series of realistic news bulletins. Many listeners who tuned in late believed Martians were actually invading. Although later accounts exaggerated the scale of the panic, there is no doubt that plenty of people were thoroughly alarmed.

Eighty-eight years later, technology has changed beyond recognition, yet human nature seems remarkably constant. We still react instantly to authoritative announcements, especially when they arrive with all the trappings of officialdom.

I also couldn’t help wondering what the devoted UFO enthusiasts must have made of all this. Those who spend years poring over government files, military archives and conspiracy theories in search of evidence of extraterrestrial visitors suddenly had what appeared to be confirmation delivered straight to their phones. For a few anxious minutes, fiction must have seemed to become fact.

Perhaps there is something revealing about us in all this. It seems humanity is not content merely to worry about the dangers we pose to ourselves—war, pollution, climate change and environmental destruction. We now imagine that beings from another world may be arriving to finish the job.

Had I been living in Brazil and my phone had shrieked out an official-looking warning in the middle of the night, I suspect I would have been more than a little unsettled myself. It’s easy to smile afterwards. It would have been rather less amusing at one o’clock in the morning.

Still, one thing is certain. The hackers succeeded in reminding us that the most dangerous intelligence on Earth is not necessarily artificial—or extraterrestrial—but very often human.