“Two skunks getting together and deciding to open a perfume factory” was one cruel bon-mot on the bombshell that Pioneer Foods plans to gobble up KWV Holdings for a rumoured R500m. The observation follows Pioneer’s widely publicized run-in with the Competition Commission for fixing the price of bread and the milling of mielies while KWV was founded to control the SA wine industry ninety plus years ago and was chief bad apple in the infamous green-peppers-in-the-Sauvignon-tank scandal of 2004. Although as one source later complained “we only added peppers to the show tank”, an admission which undermines the whole rickety foundation of the local competition circus.

Pioneer had to pay nearly R1 billion to clean up its dirty tricks, including R250m for an “incubator fund for small agrobusiness.” Which sounds an awful lot like the cash extracted from KWV to form SAWIT (the SA Wine Industries Trust) a decade ago. Let’s hope the cash doesn’t disappear, as seems to have happened at SAWIT.

Possible new logo for Pioneer Wines

KWV was founded in 1918 and Pioneer, two years later. Both are based in Paarl, which could mean that at last some of the empty offices of La Concorde get filled as plans for the conversion of the KWV white elephantine head office into a boutique hotel are seriously misguided as SA wallows in a glut of empty hotel rooms in the wake of the World Cup. Pam Golding estimates five star bed supply is up 51% in the Mother City in three years but tourists are missing. With the Grande Roche across Main Road battling for occupancy and newly appointed GM Gawie Marx suddenly departing to Pearl Valley Golf Estate last Thursday, Paarl as holiday destination for plutocrats needs more work.

If the deal goes through, the new company will constitute an awesome axis of chickens (Tydstroom) and Chenin (KWV) to balance Johann Rupert’s own food and wine pairings (Rainbow Chickens and Distell). Although conspiracy theorists at the Gouda Book Club say the real jewels in a combined business are Bokomo and Brandy. KWV chairman Thys du Toit is already a director of Pioneer, so he won’t need new business cards. Meanwhile fellow Pioneer director Jannie Mouton continues to slowly gobble up CapeVin whose assets are shares in the competition (Distell) – he bought another R3 million worth last week.