SOUTH AFRICA’S EPICUREAN DELIGHTS

from Made In SA - October 2021 Edition

FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL

REMOTE SHOPPING COMES TO THE FORE

Online retail in South Africa is surging, according to a recent World Wide Worx study, which revealed that the growth for online retail in South Africa in 2020 was 66 per cent, bringing the overall total to R30.2-billion. This has more than doubled from the R14.1-billion reached just two years ago.

This is no surprise to Yaron Assabi, CEO at Digital Mall, one of the pioneers in the local e-commerce space. “When we fi rst launched in the late 1990s, we had great success, given the scarcity of omnichannel commerce platforms at the time. Our success was created through partnerships with some of the leading retail players, including Makro, Ster Kinekor, Look and Listen and Toys R Us, among others,” he says.

“We relaunched Digital Mall in 2020, in a far more advanced e-commerce landscape. Today, we are committed to delivering a safe and comprehensive modern demand-serving omnichannel commerce platform for consumers, while also focusing on enabling small businesses to succeed online.”

Assabi points out that even global players with a local footprint face challenges in the local market as SA – unlike more developed markets – does not have a mature post offi ce.

“As a local provider, we understand the local challenges and can assist customers through our shared risk model. This doesn’t seek to alleviate the merchants, but to serve them, especially small and medium enterprises (SME).”

Vikash Singh, managing executive at Clicks, says the company’s e-commerce offering, launched in 2016, now offers a large range of products, including ranges that are found only online.

“We are continuously adding new aspects to serve our customers, such as pharmacy services, our Clicks ClubCard portal, digital vouchers, bill payments and our recently-launched online portal for SME suppliers,” he explains.

Clicks continues to improve by personalising its e-commerce experience further. “Although there are many health and beauty competitors on a global scale, Clicks’ pricing is benchmarked against market competitors to offer customers the best price in the market. We do this without compromising on product assortment and adhere to the highest quality standards to deliver our ‘feel good, pay less’ promise.”

South Africa’s e-commerce space has taken time to develop, but digitisation and the ongoing pandemic are driving recent signifi cant growth, writes

RODNEY WEIDEMANN

Vikash Singh

“WE ARE CONTINUOUSLY ADDING NEW ASPECTS TO SERVE OUR CUSTOMERS, SUCH AS PHARMACY SERVICES, OUR CLICKS CLUBCARD PORTAL, DIGITAL VOUCHERS, BILL PAYMENTS AND OUR RECENTLY-LAUNCHED ONLINE PORTAL FOR SME SUPPLIERS.”

– VIKASH SINGH, CLICKS

E-COMMERCE EXPANDS TO QUICK SERVICE RESTAURANTS

The realm of e-commerce has

also expanded to encompass the quick service restaurant (QSR) category, with KFC launching its e-commerce offering via third party aggregators in 2017.

Nicholas Duminy, digital and e-commerce director KFC South Africa, says digital acceleration, broadening e-commerce reach and investing in new channels are all strategic focuses. “We recently expanded our e-commerce offering by introducing WhatsApp chat-ordering, a fi rst of its kind in the South African QSR sector. COVID-19 accelerated channel transformation, both in terms of building capability in core areas within the organisation and launching and optimising online touchpoints to increase share in a rapidly growing channel,” he says.

“For large parts of 2020, the delivery channel was the only sales layer available to customers, therefore our ability to scale and deliver world-class customer experience was imperative. Over the severe lockdown periods, channel growth was exponential, and resource and focus were shifted rapidly to support this growth.” He believes that while there are barriers to exponential e-commerce growth in South Africa in the short term, we are approaching a tipping point where we will witness widespread adoption within three to fi ve years. “Today, it is all about customer-centricity and convenience. This will continue to set the tone for successful e-commerce strategies. I believe the food and beverage category will continue to lead e-commerce growth and, in doing so, build capability and capacity to make delivery services Nicholas Duminy and turnkey e-commerce solutions more accessible to SMEs,” concludes Duminy. GUIDELINES FOR COLLABORATION NICHE PLAYERS DOING IT RIGHT

• Just Like Papa: specialises in curated collections of high-end, authentic, trusted and durable adventure products, from GPS devices to cooler boxes and knives. • Liquor.co.za: allows you to do all your liquor shopping – including premium, craft and seldom-seen brands – in one place with delivery to your door. • Faithful to Nature: a health and wellness site offering a wide range of food and household products is the rst major retailer to roll out carbon-neutral deliveries. • UCook: creates packages complete with prechopped ingredients and an easy-to-follow recipe – the answer for those short on time or cooking skills. • Yuppiechef: continues to innovate. It has ipped the script, launching a physical retail store that features integration between digital and brick-and-mortar.

ONLINE RETAIL IN SOUTH AFRICA 2021

Cass Abrahams Bunny Chow

ONLY IN SA

Travellers like to connect and communicate with locals by trying traditional tastes. That’s the theory anyway, but, as with other kinds of connection, there can be crossed lines. Some of South Africa’s favourite foods inadvertently frighten foreigners.

How do they know that the tomato and chutney-based condiment we call “monkey gland sauce” does not contain pieces of primate? Or that KwaZulu-Natal’s Indian diaspora signature street food, bunny chow, is generally a bread bowl filled with lamb or bean curry and never includes any of Peter Rabbit’s friends and relations.

Other unique South African edible offerings are not so much frightening as confusing. Everywhere else in the world the word “Gatsby” conjures up images of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, but on the Cape Flats, it is a bisected, long loaf stuffed with various combinations of meat, melted cheese, fried eggs, hot chips and pickled chillies.

Talking of travelling, homesickness in South Africans abroad can be triggered by memories of food texture, taste and smell, some of which are regionally and/or ethnically specific. The thought of Karoo lamb lunches followed by the syrup-laden crunch of a koeksister or the silky-smooth custard filling of a milk tart makes many South Africans living overseas miss Mzansi.

Mpumalanga-born taste buds are primed for the generous glossy pleasures of Tsonga-style xigugu peanut paste and the tacky mouth-feel of guxe, okra leaf stew. Sweet, sour, salty slabs of apricot mebos are the quintessential Cape Malay comfort food. Durbanites, meanwhile, find themselves craving the sticky beachfront buzz of masala-sprinkled pineapple pieces, while those with roots in Rustenburg long for the mouth-puckeringly tart fermented sorghum porridge, ting.

Gatsby

South African cuisine offers epicurean insights both bitter and sweet, suggests ANNA TRAPIDO

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Nothing says South African Sundays in the sun quite like the coriander-laden smoky smell of boerewors on a braai. Regardless of colour, class or creed, the sizzle and smell of our national signature sausage induces a Pavlovian response in patriots from Atteridgeville to Zebedela and beyond.

More than a national dish, South Africans have a national cooking method: braai. Fire sees the various sorts of South Africans serving up the same food. The names might be different, but the methods, ingredients and tastes are strikingly similar. In addition to the “wors”, the starches and sauces are also alike.

Zulu uphuthu and Afrikaner krummelpap are both crumbly textured maize meal. Xhosa amarostile braai grid breads are essentially the same as Afrikaner roosterkoek and similar to Nama askoek. The latter is baked on coals, and the gesture by which cooks dust ash off their bread is immortalised in the !Ikhapara traditional celebratory dance (also known as the rieldans). Whether diners prefer maize meal or bread, the accompanying tamatiesmoortjie (spicy tomato relish), served by both Afrikaner and Cape Malay cooks, is strikingly similar to the recipe referred to in isiZulu as ushatini and in isiXhosa as ibisto. An idealist might assume that such culinary common ground would bring people together, but overlap is often marinated in past pain. The history of hertzoggies epitomises how food can become a proxy for wider, social, economic and political problems.

These apricot jam and coconut biscuits were named after JBM Hertzog, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1924 to 1939. There are two distinct forms of hertzoggie. White Afrikaners serve them unadorned and generally believe that coconut represents the politician’s beard. In Cape Town, there is a two-tone icing-topped version that the doyenne of Cape Malay food, Cass Abrahams, says goes back to when Hertzog was running for election.

“He made two promises. He said he would give white women the vote and make Malay voters equal to whites. When he came to power, he gave votes to white women, but his administration removed the coloured franchise in 1936. Only half the promise was kept, which is why Cape Malay style hertzoggies get covered half with runny brown icing and half pink icing and they call it a twee gevreetjie (hypocrite),” says Abrahams.

As the twee gevreetjie hertzoggies show, ours is an interesting country. If we are to fully understand and enjoy the flavours in our cross-cultural pots, we must engage with our past and present fully.