Rankings
Trans wins the 12.5 kg White Star bag by P7. Pick n Pay wins 5 kg by P1.96
Same brand, same pack, two clean comparisons. The big-bag winner expires first, and the cheapest till total is not the cheapest kilogram.
The useful price ranking is rarely the one with the longest table. It is the one that refuses to compare things that are not the same.
PriceMate found two exact White Star Super Maize Meal matches in current Botswana catalogue artwork: one pair at 5 kg, another at 12.5 kg. That gives us two defensible winners and no need to pad the list with another brand, another weight or an estimated shelf price.
The identical-pack ranking
| Pack | Retailer | Printed offer | Printed validity | Price per kg | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| White Star 12.5 kg | Trans Cash Carry | P98.99 | 14-17 Aug | P7.92/kg | 1st |
| White Star 12.5 kg | Pick n Pay | P105.99 | 10-23 Aug | P8.48/kg | 2nd |
| White Star 5 kg | Pick n Pay Riverwalk | P45.99 | 10-23 Aug | P9.20/kg | 1st |
| White Star 5 kg | Game Botswana | P47.95 | 23 Jul-19 Aug | P9.59/kg | 2nd |
Trans is P7 cheaper than Pick n Pay on the identical 12.5 kg bag. Pick n Pay's price is about 7.1% higher than the winner.
At 5 kg, Pick n Pay is P1.96 cheaper than Game. Game's price is about 4.3% higher than the winner.
Those are catalogue comparisons, not promises about stock at every branch. The Trans offer also has the shortest remaining clock: its printed artwork says 17 August.
A nominal winner that is out of stock or reached after the promotion ends is not a household saving.
The till-total trap
Pick n Pay supplies the cleanest pack-size lesson because it carries both White Star weights in overlapping offers.
- one 5 kg bag costs P45.99, or about P9.20/kg;
- one 12.5 kg bag costs P105.99, or about P8.48/kg;
- 12.5 kg bought at the 5 kg unit rate would cost about P114.98;
- the larger pack therefore saves about P8.99 for an equal 12.5 kg quantity.
But the bigger bag asks for P60 more at the till than one 5 kg bag. A household protecting transport, electricity or school money may rationally choose the smaller pack even while knowing it costs more per kilogram.
Unit value and cash-flow value are two different rankings.
The printed page overrules a faulty extraction
The structured Game viewer extracted the 5 kg price as P47. Visual inspection of the source artwork shows P47.95.
PriceMate uses the printed figure, records the discrepancy and preserves the viewer hash in the evidence snapshot.
The same check caught one-day differences between some parent catalogue dates and the validity printed on the artwork. The table above uses the printed dates.
This is exactly why a price pipeline needs both machine extraction and a visible-page check before a reader relies on it at checkout.
What this ranking does not claim
It does not rank samp, because no same-SKU, two-retailer samp match passed this evidence run. It does not call either retailer cheapest for every maize-meal product.
It does not attach an exact Botswana Day claim to the offers. And it does not turn Statistics Botswana's July food inflation reading into a shelf price.
StatsBots reported Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages up 6.6% year on year in July. That explains why a dated staple comparison matters; it does not decide the winner.
The winner comes from the named pack, printed price and live offer window.
Buy the 12.5 kg bag for the cheaper kilogram only if P105.99 fits the week. Buy the P45.99 bag if cash today matters more. That is not indecision; it is the ranking doing its job.
See also
