> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.businessbagel.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Roundup — Monday, 21 September 2026 - URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/the-roundup-monday-21-september-2026/ - Published: 2026-09-21T04:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-21T04:00:00.000Z - Author: Christian Maidman Today’s edition Fry Miles Good morning, it’s Monday the 21st of September. From cooking oil flying tourists to Antarctica to an ice-cream brand refusing to die, there’s a lot going on this morning. Some of it makes perfect sense. Some of it really doesn’t. Let’s get into it. --- MARKETS ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/09/markets--46-.png) --- OIL CHANGE ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/09/Article-sasol-cooking-oil.png) ## Sasol is selling jet fuel made from used cooking oil, and the first buyer flies tourists to Antarctica Sasol has spent decades turning coal into fuel. Now it’s turning used cooking oil into jet fuel. On 15 September, the company announced its first commercial sale of sustainable aviation fuel, made from used cooking oil collected around South Africa and processed at its Natref refinery in Sasolburg. For the world’s biggest producer of fuel and chemicals from coal, that’s quite a change of ingredients. The first customer is unusual too. White Desert flies tourists from Cape Town to Antarctica, and Sasol didn’t need to build a new refinery to supply it. The used cooking oil is fed into Natref alongside its existing inputs and processed into aviation fuel, with the refinery recently receiving the sustainability certification needed for the fuel to be sold as SAF. **From fryer to flight:** - Natref can currently produce around 1–2 million litres of SAF a year, with Sasol targeting 15 million by the end of 2027. - It isn’t cheap. SAF can cost 2–3 times as much as conventional jet fuel, while White Desert’s Antarctic day trips start at $16,500. - Aviation produces around 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, but sustainable fuel still accounted for only around 0.6% of jet fuel demand last year. White Desert is only the start. Its demand is seasonal, and Sasol says it is already finalising terms with other potential customers. [**Read the full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/sasol-cooking-oil-jet-fuel-white-desert/) --- SHELF-APPOINTED ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/09/Article-spar.png) ## The people who own SPAR’s shops are choosing its next chairman, and head office says not so fast The shops with SPAR above the door mostly belong to the people who run them, not to the listed group that supplies them. On 10 September the SPAR Guild of Southern Africa, which speaks for those retailers, wrote to interim chairman Lwazi Koyana with a name: Phil Roux, who ran Pioneer Foods and then Nampak, and it said there was meaningful shareholder support behind him. Board seats are the group’s to fill, not the retailers’. This relationship between the group and its retailers did not break in a boardroom. In 2023 a new computer system at SPAR’s KZN distribution centre emptied shelves and cost the group about R720 million in profit, after which retailers started buying straight from suppliers. Chair Mike Bosman and deputy chair Shirley Zinn resigned in August, citing a breakdown with the Guild. The letter also said the retailers could not be asked to support an executive they do not have the utmost confidence in, meaning chief executive Reeza Isaacs and his team, and six days later they softened that to asking the board to satisfy itself. A search firm is now at work, and the Guild’s three candidates go into it on the same terms as everyone else’s. [**Read the full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/spar-guild-phil-roux-chair-board-process/) --- BAGEL BITE **What is the tallest waterfall on land?** **A.** Niagara Falls **B.** Victoria Falls **C.** Angel Falls --- DOING THE ROUNDS ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/09/Article-patrice-motsepe.png) **If your retirement fund is administered by Alexforbes, its owners are about to change.** Prudential Financial is selling out as part of a wider retreat from developing markets, and its stake is being split two ways. Alexforbes will buy back close to a third of its own shares at R6.75 each, borrowing R2.1 billion to help pay for it, and Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital takes the rest, lifting it to 77.94%. Shareholders still have to approve the buyback.[**Full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/prudential-alexforbes-exit-motsepe-arc-78-percent/) **Chery left South Africa in 2018 and came back three years later.** It now sells more cars in two months than it managed in the whole of 2021, and in August it was the sixth-biggest brand in the country. Almost four out of every five of those sales are one model, the Tiggo 4\. The new arrival is a seven-seater, the Tiggo 8 Apex I, at R569 900, and it plans to start building cars at the old Nissan plant in Rosslyn in mid-2027.[**Full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/chery-south-africa-sixth-biggest-brand-tiggo-4/) **An ice-cream shop closing is not usually reversible.** Food Lover’s Market said in July that The Creamery, the Cape Town brand it owns through Seattle Coffee Company, no longer fitted its plans, then said interested parties had come forward. On 15 September it said the brand is moving forward with fresh energy and that all four shops stay open, calling the response from customers pretty incredible. What it has not said is what the arrangement actually is, or who is behind it.[**Full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/the-creamery-stays-open-food-lovers-market/) **Paying an overseas supplier from South Africa means finding a rate, filling in the Reserve Bank’s paperwork and waiting two or three days for the money to land.** Stitch, the local payments company, now does that end to end for business clients: rands go into an account it runs, a treasury firm inside the group sources the rate, and a South African bank does the conversion and the reporting. Settlement is same-day or next-day. There is no crypto leg anywhere in it.[**Full story →**](https://www.businessbagel.com/stitch-cross-border-invoice-settlement-no-crypto/) --- WEATHER ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/09/weather--42-.png) --- BAGEL GAMES ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/97/24/9724ffa3-48e9-48a7-a5f7-e38b7d2c9b36/content/images/2026/09/Wordle--46-.png) Have you got what it takes to win today’s Wordle? [**Play here →**](https://puzzel.org/en/wordle/play?p=-P1z14jIOtSXQNJb18ls&ref=businessbagel.com) --- THE ANSWER As for the Bagel Bite, the answer is: **C. Angel Falls** The water drops so far that much of it turns to mist before reaching the bottom, especially in the dry season. The falls are named after Jimmie Angel, an American pilot who flew over them in the 1930s. They tumble from the edge of a tepui, a dramatic flat-topped mountain typical of the region. Niagara is famous for its huge volume and Victoria Falls for its enormous width, but neither drops nearly as far. --- That’s your Monday underway. Enjoyed it? Forward it on, a friend can subscribe in a click. Written by the Business Bagel crew.