Expert Financial & Business Insights for South Africa

I watched the TikTok videos about the new ProNutro formulation with some scepticism at first. Social media outrage can sometimes become theatre. People pile on because everyone else is piling on. But the complaints kept coming. Some said it tasted nothing like the old ProNutro. Others were far harsher, saying it was revolting and that even their dogs wouldn’t eat it.

So I thought I’d see what the fuss was about for myself.

Finding the new ProNutro wasn’t easy. I could only locate stock at Woolworths, where it was, naturally, more expensive. One staff member told me she actually preferred the new one to the old version. That surprised me.

I had it for breakfast yesterday morning and, unfortunately, the critics were right. The taste is completely different. The old ProNutro had a familiar, comforting flavour. This version feels oddly hollow, as if it can’t decide what it wants to be. The texture is even worse. The old ProNutro was smooth. This was lumpy despite adding enough milk. It also tasted much sweeter than I remember. Far too sweet.

My rating? Zero out of ten.

This is not a product people seem to want. Judging by the outrage online, many consumers feel as if something they grew up with has been tampered with in a laboratory somewhere by people who neither understand nor care about what made it popular in the first place. Hence the headline: “Frankenstein” product.

Apparently there are reports of recalls and shortages, but I honestly don’t know what’s going on because shelves also seemed oddly empty of Weet-Bix in some stores. Usually when manufacturers face a backlash of this scale, the silence becomes noticeable. Then the PR statements arrive: vague, polished, and carefully worded so nobody actually says anything meaningful.

The sad part is that I now have a box of ProNutro sitting in the kitchen with no obvious destination. I can’t even give it to dogs because, according to some people online, even dogs are refusing it.

But the bigger issue here is not just breakfast cereal. It’s what’s happening to South African brands in general.

Pioneer Foods, now owned by PepsiCo, seems to be meddling with products that South Africans have known for generations. I still don’t fully understand why PepsiCo bought Pioneer Foods in the first place. A global cooldrink and snack giant owning deeply local pantry brands always felt like an awkward fit.

And people have short memories.

A few years ago, Peck’s Anchovette was effectively dumped by Pioneer Food, owned by PepsiCo. Thankfully, Pick n Pay and Cape-Gulf Brands rescued the products, recipes, and machinery. South Africans still have Peck’s Anchovette largely because local people stepped in before those brands disappeared into corporate oblivion.

That’s the concern now. What goes next?

Will Weet-Bix eventually be “reformulated” too? Will Marmite be altered beyond recognition? Marmite is one of those products woven into South African kitchens over decades. There is no real substitute for it.

Peck’s Anchovette, packed for Cape-Gulf Brands in Saldanha is an old South African pantry staple. What happens when products like this eventually land on the desk of somebody in a foreign boardroom looking at spreadsheets instead of customers?

I remember years ago when CPC International owned some of these brands. I was involved in work connected to fighting off Skippy peanut butter in South Africa. Look what happened there. Skippy disappeared. Another American giant arrived with confidence and assumptions about consumer tastes, only to discover that local eating habits are deeply rooted and not easily replaced.

That is the lesson many multinational corporations still don’t seem to grasp. You can introduce foreign products successfully, absolutely. South Africans are adventurous consumers. But start tampering with established local favourites at your peril.

Because local taste is not just flavour. It’s memory. It’s routine. It’s childhood. It’s identity.

And while big corporations chase efficiencies, reformulations, and global standardisation, smaller local manufacturers are quietly thriving because they actually understand the people buying the products.

In Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Pretoria, Aeroton, Alberton and elsewhere, smaller food makers are producing fantastic biscuits, chips, snacks, sauces and sweets that people genuinely love. They understand the South African palate instinctively. Most importantly, they are giving a hammering to the more pricey local manufacturing brands that have been around for decades and now are charging super high prices.

Take Go Slow chips, a new brand from a small manufacturer. ?The name is accurate. You should go slow with them because once you open the packet it becomes very difficult to stop.

Ironically, one of the few products in the Pioneer Foods stable that I still genuinely enjoy is their chutney. I find it fruitier and less sugary than Mrs Ball’s. But now I even wonder about that. Will somebody in a boardroom decide South Africans want it sweeter, sharper, cheaper, or “more globally aligned”?

Because that increasingly seems to be the problem. Everything is being adjusted, standardised, Americanised, optimised.

And consumers notice.

There’s a big lesson here for marketers and manufacturers. South Africans will happily embrace some foreign brands and products. But when it comes to long-standing local favourites, leave them alone.

Storytelling is fundamental to humans. Some say we exist because of our stories. Take the stories away and something essential goes missing. The world might still be here in some physical sense, but the human world—meaning, memory, identity—starts to thin out.

What pushed me down this line of thought is a book I’m currently reading, The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy. He’s often described as a great American writer. I picked up the book to see for myself.

There’s a scene where an old man lives like a hermit in a broken-down church, surrounded by cats, telling what may or may not be his own story. And then, almost casually, he veers into something much larger—storytelling itself.

He says, in essence, that the world we think of as solid—stone, flower, blood—is not a thing at all but a tale. That every story contains all other stories. That the tale has no fixed home except in the telling, and so it can never end. “All tales are one,” he insists, “rightly heard.”

Later, he goes further. The narrator’s job, he says, isn’t to pick a single path but to make many out of one—to keep the story alive against the listener’s suspicion that they’ve heard it all before. Because storytelling isn’t just another category of human activity. It’s the category that contains everything else. “All is telling. Do not doubt it.”

It’s a striking idea. Not just that humans tell stories, but that we live inside them.

And he’s not alone in thinking this way. Philosophers like Paul Ricoeur and Alasdair MacIntyre have argued that we make sense of our lives through narrative—that identity itself is stitched together as a kind of ongoing story. Others, like Friedrich Nietzsche, pushed the idea that what we call “truth” is often just an interpretation that’s hardened into habit.

You don’t have to buy the whole philosophical package to see the point. Take history. Consider something like the Lighthouse of Alexandria. We know it existed. We’ve pieced together fragments. But the lived reality—the voices, the arguments, the pride in building it—that’s largely gone unless it was told and retold. What survives is a mix of stone and story, and mostly the latter.

So yes, storytelling is more than a nice-to-have human trait. It’s how meaning gets made and passed on.

But here’s where it gets a bit more grounded.

Look at the stories we’re fed daily. Social media is full of them—success stories, “secrets” from athletes, entrepreneurs, celebrities. From tennis stars to Formula One drivers to business gurus, each with a neat narrative arc: struggle, breakthrough, triumph. They’re designed to pull you in. And they do. But most of them are a bit like candy floss—impressive at first glance, not much substance once you get into them.

They don’t really tell you how your story works.

Because your life already has a narrative running through it. The problem is, many of us don’t choose it—we inherit it or drift into it.

You see it everywhere. Someone who keeps telling himself he’s getting old, running out of time, unsure what to do with his money. That becomes his story. And like any good story, it starts to organise his decisions.

Zoom out and you see the same thing at a national level. In South Africa, one dominant storyline is about oppression and aftermath—what came before, what followed, and what still hasn’t been resolved. It’s not that it’s untrue. It’s that it becomes the story, the one everything else gets filtered through.

And it’s not unique. Every culture carries some version of a heavy narrative—struggle, suffering, uncertainty. Go back to ancient myths and you’ll find the same themes on repeat. Humans don’t just tell stories—we tend to tell difficult ones.

So where does that leave you?

If McCarthy’s old man is even half right, you don’t get to opt out of storytelling. You’re already in it. The only real choice is whether you shape the story or let it shape you.

That applies whether you’re writing for a market, posting something online, or just running the quiet narrative in your own head.

Because the story you tell—about your work, your limits, your future—doesn’t just describe your life.

It starts to become it.

Along the desolate fringes of Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, a radical biological shift is unfolding: desert lions have turned to the sea.

Driven away from their traditional inland prey by human encroachment, these apex predators are now stalking the shoreline to hunt fur seals, flamingos, and cormorants. It is a staggering display of adaptation, but it raises a haunting question: are we witnessing a triumph of evolution, or the desperate last stand of a species pushed to the brink?

The Lions of the Surf

These aren’t just desperate scavengers; they’ve become tactical hunters of the tide. Some have been observed patrolling the beaches under the cover of fog, snatching seals right out of the surf. There is something haunting about the image of a desert lion, paws in the salt water, competing with the ocean for a meal.

It reminds me of the song Born Free from the sixties, and Joy Adamson’s work. Back then, we thought we were just beginning to understand conservation. Today, lions are under considerably more threat. And while it would be amazing to see a lion in the desert, I fear that where there is a will, there is a way to monetize it. We have to hope that “tourism” doesn’t become the final nail in the coffin for their privacy.

What Happened to the Wild Horses?

The other mystery of the Skeleton Coast is the wild horses of the Namib (the Garub horses). I realized I hadn’t heard much about them lately, so I did some digging.

Their story is a “Wild West” epic that nearly reached a tragic end:

• A History of Abandonment: These aren’t indigenous wild animals; they are the feral descendants of domestic horses left behind during World War I—likely a mix of German stud farm racers and South African military mounts.
• The Population Collapse: Between 2013 and 2018, the herd nearly vanished. A combination of brutal, sustained drought and a clan of spotted hyenas meant that for five years, not a single foal survived.
• A Precarious Rebound: As of 2026, there is a glimmer of hope. Thanks to better rains and government intervention to manage the hyena predation, the population is slowly climbing back up toward the 100-mark. They remain some of the only wild horses in Africa, surviving in the “Sperrgebiet” (the restricted diamond area) where they’ve been shielded from hunters for 80 years.

The Cost of Isolation

For me, the Skeleton Coast remains one of those great, unexplored frontiers. I’ve been fortunate enough to see other parts of Namibia, and I’ve always been thrilled by the sheer desolation of the country. I love the ruggedness of the South African coastline—I’ve been as far as Port Nolloth and loved that you can hike for miles without seeing another soul.
But the deeper issue remains: how can the flora and the mammals of the coast survive a world made increasingly hostile by humans? Whether it’s lions forced to eat seagulls or horses dodging traffic on the B4 road, the “wild” is having to work much harder than it used to.

I’m not really one for public sculpture in nature. In a city, fine — they have their place. We’ve got a few in Cape Town that feel like they belong, like Jan Smuts or Cecil John Rhodes up in the gardens. They sit within the built environment and, somehow, make sense there.

But out in nature? That’s where I struggle.

Most people will probably take umbrage with this, but I prefer nature in its untouched, pristine state. No additions, no interpretations, no well-meaning installations trying to tell me what I’m already there to feel.

And yet, things aren’t pristine anymore, are they?

Take the coastline around Kommetjie. Urbanisation creeps in. Weekends bring crowds of leisure fishermen, all hoping to pull something — anything — from a sea that feels increasingly empty. Then there are the commercial operators with their row boats, dragging nets across the ocean floor, taking far more than most of us ever see.

I used to walk in Slangkop Nature Reserve and notice those carefully stacked stone piles people like to build along the paths. Dozens of them at one point. Little human signatures scattered across the landscape. The last time I was there, about two weeks ago, they were gone. Either the people moved on or the urge passed. Good. It felt like the place could breathe again.

But then there’s the driftwood gannet.

Near Bird Island, you’ll find a five-metre-high sculpture of a Cape gannet — or malgas — created by local artist Chip Snaddon. It’s built from driftwood, steel, and wire gathered from the coastline, commissioned by Protect the West Coast. They’ve named it “Koos Malgas,” and it stands there, weathered and watchful.

I’ll admit, I was curious. There’s another one closer to home in Silvermine Wetlands — a sea otter — so I’ve seen this kind of thing before.

The photograph I’ve included here keeps the gannet at a distance. That’s deliberate. If you’re interested, go and see it properly. Walk up to it. Look at how it’s been put together.

Because, for all my reservations, this one does something.

It says something.

These sculptures are made with care — you can see that immediately. And this one, in particular, points quietly but firmly to the precarious state of the Cape Gannet and its ecosystem. Overfishing, habitat pressure — most of it happening far offshore, out of sight, where the real damage is done.

So maybe that’s the question.

Are signs like this necessary?

I still lean toward leaving nature alone. But standing there, looking at that driftwood bird, it’s hard to ignore what it represents.

Maybe we’ve reached a point where nature, on its own, no longer speaks loudly enough for people to hear.

Next time you’re in Kommetjie, go and have a look for yourself.

Test your smarts on your general knowledge and news reading this week. This round features 10 questions covering stories we tracked in Idea Accelerator during the week, alongside a few cultural curveballs and local history.
Good luck with the quiz! You’ll find the answers at the end of the post.

The Questions

1. Before it was renamed after a former Prime Minister, and much later became Cape Town International, what was the original name of the city’s primary airport?
A) Wingfield Airport
B) Bellville Airport
C) South Peninsula Airport
D) Cape Town Municipal Aerodrome

2. Johannesburg’s prestigious Hyde Park suburb was declared a residential area in 1955. After which world-famous location was it named?
A) Hyde Park in Sydney, Australia
B) Hyde Park in New York, USA
C) Hyde Park in London, UK
D) Hyde Park in Chicago, USA

3. Which independent South African chocolate manufacturer—founded by a Belgian master chocolatier in 1987—recently entered liquidation following a high-profile dispute with Woolworths?
A) Lindt & Sprüngli
B) Beyers Chocolates
C) Afrikoa
D) Honest Chocolate

4. Garfield, the world’s most famous lasagna-loving cartoon feline, was modeled after which specific type of cat?
A) Siamese
B) Orange Tabby
C) Maine Coon
D) Russian Blue

5. South Africa is mourning the loss of a global icon and opera legend who died this week at the age of 93. Who was this world-famous soprano?
A) Pretty Yende
B) Pumeza Matshikiza
C) Mimi Coertse
D) Sibongile Khumalo

6. What is the vocabulary word used to describe “roundabout language”—using many words where fewer would do, especially to avoid a direct answer?
A) Eloquence
B) Circumlocution
C) Brevity
D) Soliloquy

7. In the world of Artificial Intelligence, what is the specific term for when a model confidently generates false, nonsensical, or inaccurate information?
A) Glitching
B) Buffering
C) Hallucination
D) Ghosting

8. In the world of Formula 1, what is the current disparaging “nickname” often used by critics to describe the modern, high-tech hybrid cars?
A) Ghost racers
B) Battery cars
C) Slot cars
D) Turbo-tanks

9. Which South African-linked energy giant listed on the Nasdaq this week, raising R17 billion for its small modular reactor (SMR) technology?
A) Sasol
B) X-energy
C) Eskom Holdings
D) Red Rocket

10. Despite the ongoing influences of climate change and global warming, how many days of sunshine does Cape Town continue to average annually as of 2026?
A) Roughly 200 days
B) Over 300 days
C) Exactly 365 days
D) Fewer than 150 days

The Answers

1. B) Bellville Airport. It was originally named for its proximity to the town of Bellville and served domestic routes before being renamed at the request of the Bellville Federation of Taxpayers.
2. C) Hyde Park in London. The suburb was named to reflect the prestige and “garden city” feel of the famous London park.
3. B) Beyers Chocolates. Founded by Kees Beyers, the company entered liquidation this month after losing its long-standing supply relationship with Woolworths.
4. B) Orange Tabby. While his personality is one-of-a-kind, his physical traits are famously those of a ginger/orange tabby.
5. C) Mimi Coertse. A true pioneer, she was the first South African to conquer the major opera stages of Europe, including the Vienna State Opera, in the 1950s.
6. B) Circumlocution. Derived from Latin, it means “talking around” a subject. A common example is using “polite” avoidance—such as referring to someone as being “in a delicate condition” rather than simply saying they are “pregnant.”
7. C) Hallucination. This term describes AI errors where the system “dreams up” facts that aren’t true but presents them with total confidence.
8. B) Battery cars. A term used by F1 purists who miss the roar of the older, naturally aspirated combustion engines.
9. B) X-energy. The company is a major player in the “Nuclear Renaissance,” projecting a massive market opportunity for its reactor technology by 2050.
10. B) Over 300 days. Even with shifting global weather patterns, the Mother City maintains its reputation as a premier sunny destination for locals and tourists alike.

You want to know what I think about leadership? Watch a cat. Then watch a dog. You’ll learn more in five minutes than from a shelf of books written by some retired CEO who got the boot and decided to cash in.

Cats are great leaders because they’re completely themselves. They don’t need a pack. They don’t look around to see what everyone else is doing. A domestic cat will walk into a room, assess the situation, and decide on their own terms whether to engage or walk away.

Compare that to the pack mentality of dogs or wolves. I’ve been reading The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy recently—wolves in Texas and Mexico—and last year I read Call of the Wild. Wolves are fascinating. They work in packs with a clear structure. The young upstarts take the front line of defense, the frail ones get protected in the middle, and there’s a rear guard watching their backs. Nature figured this out a long time ago. But here’s the thing: a wolf leader is still embedded in the pack. A cat leader doesn’t need the pack. That independence, that self-possession—that’s rare.

Which brings me to leadership books. Some 20 years ago or so, the market felt flooded with them. Consultants were writing them. Media experts were writing them. Retired CEOs or given-the-boot CEOs were writing them. Every theme under the sun: principle-centered leadership, ethical leadership, the leadership of Attila the Hun. There was one obscure book on a Taoist approach written by a human relations consultant. I bought it but forget the title. A quick Google search found the title: The Tao of Leadership: Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching Adapted for a New Age” by John Heider, published in 1986. 

There’s a new one now by a media consultant Jack Myers called The Tao of Leadership: Harmonizing Technological Innovation and Human Creativity in the AI Era. I looked at the summary and couldn’t make head or tail of it.

Anyone who has been a practicing Taoist would read the second book, not the first one, and wonder what leadership is all about.

A practicing Taoist doesn’t need a media consultant to explain Lao Tzu. Real Taoist leadership is simple: you get people to do things, then you walk away. The people say, “Look what we did.” The leader steps out of the way like a midwife who encourages the birth of good ideas but doesn’t grab the credit. That’s not how things usually happen, unfortunately.

The Face of Stoic Leadership

I walked into Cape Town International Airport yesterday—I still catch myself thinking of it as DF Malan—and saw a photograph in the China Daily that stopped me in my tracks.

I couldn’t help but notice this ginger fellow’s stoic expression while reading through the China Daily Global Weekly (April 24-30, 2026 edition). As the original caption notes, this is a cat being vaccinated at Ringpai Pet Hospital in Tianjin back in March.

This fellow—a mix of Golden British and Exotic Shorthair—captures the essence of what I’m talking about. He isn’t performing for a crowd. He isn’t checking a manual. He just is.

I got curious about how many leadership books are coming out now because I thought the flood might have thinned. Surprise—it hasn’t. If anything, it’s worse. Estimates show thousands of new paperback books with “leadership” in the title appear every year. One calculation from a few years back already counted well over 50,000 leadership-related titles across major retailers, and that was before self-publishing and audiobooks exploded. Twenty years ago there was a surge, but the current ecosystem makes it cheaper and easier to publish than ever. Retailers and bestseller lists still routinely feature dozens of new leadership titles. The market is as crowded as it was two decades ago, maybe more. I have no reason why this has happened, nor do I want to find out.

I’ve worked with leaders in all sorts of fields, and I often wonder if they’ve read any of these books. One memory still makes me groan: a defunct manager wormed his way into the HR training department just to preach leadership. Oh, what a tedious, awful time that was. Let’s forget that and move on.

Here’s what I actually believe. Leadership starts with you. If you don’t have self-leadership, how can you lead others? Then you need to think situational. One style won’t work for an art club, a performing arts venue, a manufacturing plant, or an industrial tech lab. They’re all different.

And then there’s the ancient Chinese wisdom. Lao Tzu said in the Tao Te Ching: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” That’s the cat leader. Not the wolf leader. Not the CEO who needs a microphone and a stage. The real leader creates conditions where things happen and then gets out of the way. Another Taoist image I love: the leader as water. Water doesn’t struggle. It flows around obstacles, wears down stone over time, and always finds the lowest place—which is actually the position of strength. Humility and patience. Not exactly the stuff of most leadership bestsellers.

Take Steve Jobs. Whatever you say about him, the man had vision. He listened to others, sure, but ultimately he made the decision he felt was best. As I walked into Cape Town International Airport yesterday—still think of it as DF Malan—and saw huge ads for the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro. I was astounded. That business is still going exceptionally well. Vision, insight, wisdom. Those are the fundamental qualities. Not the flavor-of-the-month framework from a consultant who’s never actually led anything.

So read the books if you want. But maybe watch a cat first. Then look in the mirror. Then ask yourself: am I leading, or am I just managing a pack because I’m afraid to walk alone?

It’s always an emotional experience collecting or dropping off a loved one or family member from the airport. Hellos are exciting but goodbyes have a touch of sadness. Especially when you turn on your car radio and Chris Isaak is singing a cover of “My baby left me” which is featured on his 2011 album, Beyond the Sun. The album is a collection of covers honoring Sun Records artists.

Cape Town Airport, previously called DF Malan, was where I bought my own ticket and flew to Johannesburg in August 1980. That was a major emotional upheaval leaving the town to start a new career and life in a new city. Journalism beckoned and the main city for this was Johannesburg.

Over the past two weeks we explored all the places I go to and those that I normally don’t visit. That’s the benefit of being with someone out of town – you get to see where you live again from the perspective of an outsider. Refreshing.

The peninsula has much to offer even in late autumn as temperatures drop to 15°C. Seals at Kalk Bay Harbour, the giant driftwood sculpture of a Malgas bird at Kommetjie and the serenity of a small beach past Simon’s Town.

Amazing to behold was a young woman going for a swim at 8pm after dark under the full moon at Fish Hoek beach.

I came into town early this morning and was lucky to find a small Starbucks in Kloof Street that opened at 6:30. I have some shopping to do later in town but the shops only open after 8am. Good time to reflect.

In the blue silence after people have left your life, even if only temporarily, you wonder what being together really means. If it’s mutual respect and kindness, then it leads to the right kind of things. Some people grow into dependency and that can lead to relying on the other person for all sorts of things. Others become needy. Only the timbre of your own emotions and thoughts can decide what you really prefer.

The dawn has broken now and it is a new day. Too soon we get caught back into the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It’s the natural course of things. Special moments, special times become part of the accumulation of memories we hold dear.

I recently stumbled upon a video detailing the collapse of a prominent, 34-year relationship between a master chocolate manufacturer and one of the nation’s largest retailers. It came as a shock—not just because I had missed the initial reporting (which appeared as a deep-dive exclusive in the Financial Mail in late April 2026), but because of the sheer speed of the fall.
As someone who has spent a career in business journalism and corporate sustainability, this story is a loud “danger signal.” It is a sobering reminder of how quickly a decades-long partnership can dissolve into liquidation when a supplier becomes too dependent on a single, powerful customer.

The Expertise SA Cannot Afford to Lose

I have always felt a sense of pride that South Africa was home to a chocolate-making business of this caliber. Founded in 1987 by a Belgian master chocolatier, this business brought world-class expertise to our shores. Their facility was a testament to what local manufacturing could achieve, producing nearly 80 tonnes of chocolate a week at its peak.
For over 30 years, this supplier and their primary retail customer were synonymous. The manufacturer produced the heart of the retailer’s confectionery range. However, this success came with a hidden cost: concentration risk. When one customer accounts for roughly half of your turnover, the relationship is no longer a partnership; it is a dependency.

The Exclusivity Trap

The friction reportedly began when the supplier sought to diversify. They acquired a second factory to supply other major supermarket chains—a move that, from a business continuity perspective, was incredibly smart. You should never put all your cocoa beans in one basket.
However, the retail giant reportedly viewed this expansion as a threat to their “proprietary expertise.” When the supplier refused to shutter the second facility and limit their growth, the relationship soured. Orders were slashed, a massive hole opened in the budget, and by April 2026, the manufacturer was forced into liquidation.

The Ethics of Power in Retail

This story doesn’t make the food manufacturing or retail landscape look good. It raises serious questions about Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) and true sustainability:

• Sustainability is more than “Green”: True corporate sustainability must include the economic resilience of the supply chain. If a retailer’s demands force a loyal 34-year partner into bankruptcy, can we really call that an ethical partnership?
• A National Loss of Skill: South Africa has very few independent, large-scale chocolate factories. While we have global giants and small boutique artisans, losing a mid-sized technical powerhouse hurts our national manufacturing base.
• The Warning Signal: For every local manufacturer, the message is clear: Tread carefully. When your customer becomes your “everything,” you lose the power to say no.

A Hope for a “New Formation”

Despite the liquidation, there is a glimmer of hope. In South Africa, liquidation often leads to a sale of assets. My hope is that the brand, the master-chocolatier techniques, and the beloved product lines can emerge in a new formation—perhaps under a structure that allows for more independence and a broader customer base.
As I sit here with a box of chocolates I recently bought—likely some of the last stock to leave that factory—I am reminded that business is about more than just contracts and exclusivity. It is about the ethics of how we treat those who help build our brands.
In this economy, we need more local experts, not fewer. We must ensure our retail giants nurture that expertise rather than stifling it.

Key Takeaways for Suppliers:

1. The 30% Rule: Aim to never let one customer dictate more than 30% of your revenue.
2. Exclusivity is a Cage: Ensure exclusivity clauses have clear “sunset” dates or allow for non-competing growth.
3. Continuity is Diversification: A “Plan B” customer isn’t just a backup; it’s your primary defense against a relationship breakdown.

I came across a headline recently: Cheap Businesses to Start in the U.S.: Low-Cost Ideas with High Potential.

It got me thinking—does that idea even translate here?

Because in South Africa, “cheap” and “business” don’t naturally belong in the same sentence.

Let’s be honest. Every business costs something. If it’s not money upfront, it’s your time, your energy, your attention—often all three. And that’s before you even know if the idea will work. There are no guarantees. You can put in months of effort, a bit of capital, and still walk away with nothing to show for it.

So what do people actually mean when they talk about a “cheap” business?

What “cheap” really means

It doesn’t mean free. It doesn’t even mean low risk.

What people are usually referring to is low upfront cash. That’s it.

In most cases, these are businesses where:

• You already have the skill

• You already have the tools

• You can start small without committing too much money

But the trade-off is obvious—you become the business.

The usual suspects

If you look around, the so-called “cheap” businesses tend to fall into familiar categories.

Service-based work is the most common. Social media management, admin support, bookkeeping, writing—things you can do with a laptop and a bit of experience. The barrier to entry is low, but so is the barrier for everyone else. You’re competing in a crowded space, and you’re selling your time.

Then there are home-based efforts—baking, catering, sewing, small-scale production. These sound manageable on paper, but margins can get tight very quickly. Ingredients go up. Electricity goes up. Suddenly your “cheap” business needs volume just to make it worthwhile.

You also see a lot of micro-services—car washing, gardening, cleaning. There’s always demand for these, especially in a tough economy. But they rely heavily on consistency and repeat customers. Miss a few weeks, and income drops just as quickly as it came.

And then there’s reselling. Buying and selling through platforms like Facebook Marketplace or via WhatsApp groups. This is where people often convince themselves they’re starting “cheap,” but it can turn quickly. The moment you’re sitting with unsold stock, your cash is tied up and your risk has already increased.

The part no one really talks about

The real cost isn’t always the money.

It’s the opportunity cost.

Time spent trying to get a small business off the ground is time you’re not earning elsewhere. It’s evenings, weekends, and mental bandwidth. And if it doesn’t work out, you don’t get that back.

That’s why the idea of a “cheap” business can be misleading. It downplays what you’re actually putting on the line.

A better way to think about it

Instead of asking, “What’s a cheap business to start?”

A more useful question is:

“What’s the cheapest way to test if someone will pay me?”

That shifts the focus.

You start smaller. You charge earlier. You pay attention to real demand instead of assumptions. And you avoid sinking time and money into something that hasn’t proven itself yet.

The reality

There’s no version of a business that is:

• Cheap

• Easy

• Guaranteed

At best, you get to choose your trade-offs.

Most of the time, a “cheap” business in South Africa looks like this:

• Low upfront cost

• High personal effort

• Uncertain return

That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. It just means it should be approached with clear eyes.

Because the risk isn’t removed—it’s just moved.

This content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, or professional advice. Individual circumstances vary, and readers should consider their own situation or consult a qualified professional before making business or financial decisions.

Walking and running shoes have quietly become one of those expenses that make you stop and ask, “since when?” The cost is honestly quite something. What used to feel like a straightforward purchase now requires a bit of thought, and in some cases, a bit of luck.

I bought a branded walking shoe last year. In the store, it felt great — comfortable, supportive, everything you’d expect at that price point. But once I got home and actually used it on a proper walk, it was a different story. The soles had this strange feel to them, almost like you could sense the structure inside. The only way I could make them work was by wearing thick walking socks. Not ideal, but manageable.

To be fair, the shoes have held up reasonably well overall. I took them on a long walk this past Saturday through the Parklands area in Cape Town — proper distance, not just a quick stroll — and it did the job. No real complaints there.

But it did get me thinking about just how expensive these shoes have become. You really have to choose carefully now, because getting it wrong costs you. And it’s not entirely clear what’s driving the price. Yes, they’re lighter. Yes, there’s more support and design that goes into them. But still — it’s a lot.

What’s interesting is how many people are actually out there walking and running. If you spend any time around the peninsula, you’ll see it. Groups of ten or twelve people walking together, retirees, younger people, all out in the mornings and afternoons, in all kinds of weather. Walking, in particular, has grown into something quite big. It’s social, it’s accessible, and it doesn’t require much — other than, it seems, an increasingly expensive pair of shoes.

And walking does something else. It changes how you see things.

When you’re driving, you think you’re taking everything in, but you’re not. You’re just passing through. Walking slows everything down. You start noticing the details — how someone has built a wall, what’s growing in a garden, what people choose to put in their windows. Small things, but interesting.

The other day, walking along a nearby vlei, I caught a brief glimpse of a Cape clawless otter. I’ve lived in the Cape for two years and had never seen one before. They’re shy, so you don’t just stumble across them. Without walking, I wouldn’t have seen it at all.

So yes, walking and running shoes are getting more expensive, and the category is clearly growing in South Africa. You can see it in the number of people out there, putting in the miles.

It’s just that these days, even something as simple as going for a walk comes with a slightly higher price tag than it used to.