In the 2018 Brandz study by Kantar Millward Brown it has created a list of ten most trusted South African brands, a list which includes mainly food products, the 75 year old KOO one of these and right at the top on Trust, and the very new online shopping brand Takealot.com, already ranked third. None of the country’s largest value brands appear on the top trusted brand list. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Nedbank
Cape Winemakers Guild Auction Showcase 2018 presents 44 top winemakers’ exclusive Wines!
I was invited to attend the Cape Winemakers Guild Auction Showcase at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Thursday evening, tasting some of the superb wines of the 44 members of the Guild, representing the best of the best of our country’s winemakers. The Auction Showcase is in preparation of the Cape Winemakers Guild Auction, which takes place at Spier on Saturday 29 September. It was impossible to taste all 44 winemakers’ wines, so I have reported on those wines I tasted and the winemakers I spoke to. Talk of the Showcase was the resignation of three senior members of the Guild.
Cape Winemakers Guild protégées to gain experience in France and the USA!
Three Cape Winemakers Guild protégés are to be sent overseas by the Cape Winemakers Guild’s Protégé Programme, to gain international experience. The Protégé Programme seeks to promote transformation in the wine industry. Continue reading →
Cape Winemakers Guild Auction 2015 reaches new records!
The 31st Nedbank Cape Winemakers Guild (CWG) Auction 2015 held at the Spier Conference Centre today achieved almost the same total as last year, at R11,8 million, despite 264 fewer cases having been sold today. Record prices for red and white wines were achieved, with an increase in the average price per case of 10%. The average price per case was R4599, or R767 per bottle. The 2015 revenue generated by the Auction was about R 100000 lower than that of 2014.
The 55 wines sold at the Auction today were 34 red wines, 17 white wines, 3 Méthode Cap Classique, and a dessert wine. The highest price achieved at the Auction was for the Kanonkop CWG Continue reading →
American Express Platinum Fine Dining Awards 2016; 2017 Platinum Taste Awards to challenge Eat Out Awards?
Last night (7 September) the American Express Platinum Fine Dining Awards 2016 were presented for Cape Town, the Winelands, and the Garden Route at The Watershed in the V&A Waterfront, a total of 31 awards presented. Last night (14 September) the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal awards were presented at Katy’s Palace Bar in 
Johannesburg.
Interesting announcements made during the evening in Cape Town appear to indicate that the Platinum Taste Awards (new name from next year) will take Eat Out head on next year! At the awards event, the name change for next year was announced, as was that the Platinum Taste Awards will introduce seven award categories. It is no longer a criterion for a restaurant to accept Continue reading →
Woolworths under consumer pressure, on the back-foot, in massive Sunday Times supplement?!
We wrote recently how Woolworths has been misleading consumers with claims about its Ayrshire milk, deceiving food labelling, and how it tries to create an image of healthy produce via its ‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa‘ series on SABC3. The group Grass Consumer Food Action has been persistent in its criticism of Woolworths, and appears to have hit a raw nerve in the Good Business Journey division at Woolworths, the retailer having launched a brand new ‘Good Food News‘ 16-page insert in the Sunday Times yesterday! It looks like a Taste magazine (the Woolworths sponsored magazine published by New Media Publishing) but printed in Tabloid format on recycled paper!
While the Tabloid has ‘headlines’ on page 1, to attract one’s attention to the content, it consists of a mix of ‘advertorials’ of its award-winning wines (since when are wines a food, as per the name of the publication?) in ‘Crowned as the best‘; ‘responsibly sourced‘ fish; braai suggestions for ‘Ready Steady Braai’; and ‘Flavours of Home‘ (prepared
foods with strong spices such as curries, and traditional foods such as koeksisters and milk tart); as well as editorial. It is obviously planned as a monthly insert, numbered ‘Issue 01′, and dated September 2014. The focus of the first issue is ‘lovelocal‘:
* ‘New on the shelf‘ (page 3) showcases new pack designs for wine boxes, braai tins, braai marinade, braai Continue reading →
2015 American Express Platinum Fine Dining Awards restaurants announced, Western Cape loses eight restaurants!
The 2015 American Express Platinum Fine Dining Awards have been announced, the Western Cape (39) having a small head start over Gauteng (33) in the number of restaurants on the list of 89 restaurants in total. Five new restaurants have been added to the list: 95 Keerom, Delaire Graff Restaurant, Kitima, and Makaron at Majeka House, all in the Western Cape, as well as The Leopard in Johannesburg.
Restaurants that were eligible to receive an American Express Platinum Fine Dining Award have to accept the credit card as payment, and have to accept a booking for four by a Platinum Card holder within four days of booking. Excellence, creativity, and offering guests an exquisite culinary experience are evaluated.
New head of the American Express Platinum Fine Dining Awards is Tamsin Snyman, who also is the Africa and Indian Ocean Islands chairman of the World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards. She has taken over the Awards management from Victor Strugo, who had been involved for the past 16 years.
Nedbank Head of Corporate Card Services Pamela White said about the awards: ‘The awards continue to reflect the country’s rising culinary spirit and serve as a catalyst in championing the enhancement of the fine dining industry and experience in South Africa. As the exclusive issuer of American Express in South Africa, we are honoured to be associated with this initiative as it not only celebrates South African restaurateurs but also promotes fine dining’.
Last year the American Express Platinum Fine Dining Awards list had 95 restaurants, the Western Cape list having reduced by four restaurants on the list, despite having added four new restaurants, therefore a total loss of eight restaurants. Western Cape restaurants no longer on the list this year are La Colombe (probably due to the long period of closure and its new premises not yet operating), Zachary’s, Bukhara, Bombay Brasserie at The Taj, Savoy Cabbage, Kurland Hotel Restaurant, Constantia Uitsig (closed down), and Serendipity’s. The reason for the restaurants dropping off the list may be the tough economic climate, some of the restaurants purposely no longer accepting Amex credit cards due to their high merchant commission rate, or they have been judged to no longer meet the standards. Missing from the Western Cape list altogether but being in a Top 20 Restaurant league are The Test Kitchen, Pot Luck Club, The Kitchen at Maison, Equus, Camphors at Vergelegen, Mondiall, Tokara, Burrata, Springfontein Eats, Indochine, The Restaurant at Newton Johnson, and Jardine at Jordan.
The 2015 Award winners are: Continue reading →
What has happened to Woolworths? Misleads consumers, no link between TV shows and stores!
I have no idea who heads up Woolworths’ Marketing department, but it seems that the retailer has lost the plot! Once the darling of all, seen to be above reproach in the quality of the products it sells and the lengths that Woolworths will go to find the most organic and animal-friendly produce for its customers, it is being lambasted for copying other brands, for importing tomatoes, peas and more, and for making misleading claims about its products. In addition, it seems to have lost the link between its expensive sponsorship of TV food programmes and its stores!
Let’s start with ‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa’, a programme which has been running on SABC3 for the past 9 weeks, a travelogue of our beautiful country, and documentation of Woolworths’ sourcing of sustainable and ethical produce, or so it is presented. We have been exposed to Woolworths suppliers of tomatoes in Stellenbosch, organic wines made in Franschhoek, apples and pears grown in Grabouw, SASSI-friendly fish sourcing, and the
pasture-fed lamb from the Karoo. Criticism has been leveled about the use of an Australian surfer who came third in MasterChef Australia in 2011, as the tour guide to our country and the guide to its sustainable food and wine treasure chest, a self-confessed ‘cooker’ and not a chef! The dishes in the eight episodes to date have been as basic as salads, pizzas, and sandwiches, with a mussel pot and an Eton Mess too. In some episodes the Woolworths punt has been so strong (i.e. the tomato growing) that it has become irritating, but of late the strong Woolworths promotion has been toned down. Surprising is the low-key advertising for Woolworths in its half-hour episodes, and is nothing as mouthwatering as the Woolworths’ commercials we have seen on MasterChef SA Seasons 1 and 2. Nedbank is the other Continue reading →
‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa’ – who is he, are SA viewers being misled, Woolworths pushing its Australian investments ?
The question on the lips of many South African viewers of ‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa’ is: why Hayden Quinn? Why choose a MasterChef Australia top 3 finalist (no, not winner) of 2011 (no, not even 2013) to promote the beauty of South Africa and its abundance of sustainable foods amongst South Africans? We did some research, and found that South African viewers are being misled about the TV show host, and that Woolworths appears to have a hidden agenda in pushing its Australian investments!
I started with the Cardova Group, the production company of ‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa‘, and of the ‘Expresso Morning Show’ and ‘Top Travel‘ too, all flighted on SABC3. A random e-mail landed in my Inbox from LinkedIn, asking me to congratulate Mark Bland as newly appointed Producer of ‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa’, just as the series kicked off and my interest in it was piqued. I got Mark’s cellphone number via LinkedIn, and asked him for more information about the food series. He was extremely hesitant in talking to me, even though we have known each other for a good two to three years. He is a regular reader of my blog, and has commented on it on occasion. I was taken aback about his hesitancy to meet, to talk about the new show, stating that he had just been promoted, and did not want to jeopardise his new appointment in case I wrote something that could land him in trouble. As a regular reader he would have known that I can only write what I have been told. As the producer of the show, one would have thought that he would have wanted information about the series to be shared, or expected that he would have referred me to a PR person within his company, or at Woolworths, SABC3, and/or Nedbank, the major sponsors of the series. The best he could send me was this bland (pardon the pun) media release: Continue reading →
‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa’ episode 3 very fishy! Paternoster a West Coast ‘Greek island’!
It was lovely to see ‘Hayden Quinn: South Africa’ back on track in episode 3 last night, with beautiful filming of the small fishing village where nothing happens every 45 minutes, it was joked! The word ‘Afrikaans’ was not mentioned once by Hayden, but he struggled to pronounce the surname of his host Chef Kobus van der Merwe from Oep ve Koop Bistro, previously named Oep ve Eet when we ate there.
Paternoster was shown from its most beautiful side, with an endless beach, fishermen’s boats on the beach, and white-washed houses making the village look like a ‘little Greek island’, Hayden observed. It is the oldest fishing village in our country, and the name of the village comes from ‘Our Father’. Hayden stayed at Abalone House & Spa, and the ‘quirky bohemian feel’ of its interior decor was shown, being dominated by prints of the work by the late artist Vladimir Tretchikoff. The strict architectural guidelines for houses in Paternoster was highlighted. Interesting is that there was no mention of Reuben’s Restaurant at Abalone House, one of the five restaurants belonging to Reuben’s Robertsons Pop-Up and Pop-In Riffel! Interesting too is that Gaaitjie restaurant with unfriendly owner Suzi Holtzhausen also was not mentioned, one of the better restaurants in the village.
Chef Kobus used to work at New Media Publishing in Cape Town before returning to his home town Paternoster, where his parents own ‘Die Winkel op Paternoster’, a mouthful for Hayden to say! Chef Kobus uses a section of the building and the garden to serve his guests, and forages seafood as well as wild greens and shoreline herbs, which he uses in the preparation of his dishes. Chef Kobus was described as being recognised as a WWF SASSI (South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative) ambassador in his sustainable and responsible use of fish in his Bistro. Continue reading →