Daily Bread brings you an exclusive sneak preview of next year’s news - before it happens.


JANUARY
Shoppers revert to a feral state as the big freeze rolls into its sixth consecutive week.

Man turns against wife, parent against child and pet against weirdly over-affectionate pensioner as society’s boundaries break down completely. There are even reports that a tribe of heavily bearded savages have been seen shopping at Lidl.

Meanwhile, Asda proudly declares that it has learned the lessons of last year’s lacklustre Christmas… by doing all its shopping at Tesco.

FEBRUARY
Relaxed new laws on product placement kick in, amid fears that ITV will cease to be the bastion of artistic creativity and intellectual ambition that came up with Strike It Lucky.

Aptly, soap operas lead the way with some subtle fmcg tie-ins. Coronation Street is renamed Quality Street, Emmerdale becomes Cravendale and Hollyoaks rebrands as I Can’t Believe This Rubbish Is Still On TV.

Over on Channel Four, Come Dine With Me is renamed Horrify A Roomful of Odious, Self-Important Strangers By Fobbing Them Off With Frozen Spring Rolls From Iceland’s £1 Party Range.

MARCH
As Sir Terry Leahy is unexpectedly unveiled as Kim Jong-Il’s chosen successor in North Korea, Tesco reveals the next phase of Jong-Tel’s Clubcard legacy.

A pilot scheme will tattoo Clubcard membership details directly on to shoppers’ forearms for ease of scanning as they are herded through the tills, while the revamped loyalty cards carry biometric analytics the CIA dubs “terrifyingly advanced”.

“There is nothing at all sinister about us recording the DNA of our shoppers in a vast network of underground laboratories,” insists Richard Brasher. “Besides, if the FSA reckons cloned meat is safe, cloned shoppers must be too.”

APRIL
The reception for Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleclass is declared an alcohol-free event after the Budget pushes duty on booze to a level where even the royal family can no longer afford it.

Prince Philip’s furious declaration that “heads will roll” turns out to be eerily prescient when his wife, the head of state, is spotted smoking Drum roll-ups because “they’re well cheaper than Lamberts, innit”.

Meanwhile, Mark Price’s pledge that Waitrose will price-match Poundland on 3,000 key items, including batteries that don’t work and expired multi-packs of Toffee Crisp from 1973, turns out to be deadly serious and not an elaborate April Fool prank.

MAY
Andrew Lansley leaves the tobacco trade wheezing in indignation after unveiling draconian new laws to prevent people enjoying smoking.

Packs must carry abusive, highly personal slogans questioning the hygiene and sexual potency of smokers in a bid to undermine their self-esteem, while those who continue to buy cigarettes may only smoke blindfolded beneath a leaky drainpipe while being kicked in the shins by a junior health minister.

They are also not allowed to inhale and must dress exclusively in Sainsbury’s Tu clothing to subtract credibility from claims that smoking looks cool.

JUNE
Marc Bolland unveils the sensational next step of his plan to keep Marks & Spencer exactly as it was before.

“Continuity is the key,” he tells shareholders at the retailer’s annual Bingo convention, asking the sea of purple rinses to refer to him as ‘Sir Stuart’ from now on. “The businesh must change shlooowly,” he adds, having evidently forgotten it was Heineken he used to run, not Grolsch.

JULY
After the 2010 triumph of its campaign with Lionel Richie, Walkers continues to pair Gary Lineker with a roster of fading pop icons debasing their former hits. First up is Elton John, bashing hungrily at his organ for Are You Ready (Salted) For Love? before Paul McCartney croons Let It Beef & Onion.

Meanwhile, the vegan food company owned by McCartney’s ex-wife, Heather Mills, is in hot water after Trading Standards finds its boxes of mock-turkey drumsticks are often a leg short of the advertised amount.

AUGUST
As the economic gloom finally begins to clear, retailers herald the exciting new future-dining-retro-scratch-premium-budget-microwave trend, which may or may not be sweeping the country depending on how you cook the numbers.

“The latest data illustrates that shoppers increasingly like, or dislike, either eating out or cooking at home, possibly using an array of forward-looking brands and own-label items they thought they’d seen the back of in the 1980s, or not,” says an analyst from Kandypants Worldpanel. “The picture couldn’t be clearer, even if we wanted it to be.”

SEPTEMBER
In the latest phase of their all-conquering media blitz, culinary homunculus Heston Blumenthal and Stepford pensioner Delia Smith take their groundbreaking double-act on tour, playing to crowds of up to 70,000 in packed arenas across the land.

An epic set at Wembley – featuring classic hits such as ‘Ginger and rhubarb crumble’ and ‘Heston shoves a pomegranate up a pig’s backside’ – concludes with a 20-minute psychedelic version of Delia’s 70s prog favourite ‘Cheese soufflé’, with a guest solo from Eric Clapton on the electric whisk.

OCTOBER
After Amazon’s shock move into grocery last year, iPod maker Apple stuns the trade by announcing it has copyright over the popular seeded fruit with which the company shares a name.

In the US, Apple’s inspirational founder Steve Jobs wows technophiles with the new iCore, a perfectly spherical all-white fruit that plays Beatles tunes when you bite into it.

NOVEMBER
Jamie Oliver returns to the campaign trail, with an impassioned plea on behalf of the few people who still don’t own his entire range of cookery books.

“It’s a disgrace, in this day and age, that there are children in secondary school that haven’t read volumes four, five and six of my 30-Minute Meals series,” he rants.

Meanwhile, one lucky Ocado customer is surprised to find she has bought the entire company by mistake after its stock market valuation dips below the online retailer’s minimum delivery size.

DECEMBER
For the third year running, a completely unforeseeable change of season means the weather unexpectedly gets a bit colder, potentially adding minutes to walks down the shop and forcing older consumers to use a brolly.

“Shoppers know that rain falling vertically from the sky can, in many cases, result in dampness of clothing and even hair,” warns James Lowman of the ACS. “Convenience stores are an ideal place to nip in and stare idly at the magazines for a few moments while the worst of the weather passes, or to contemplate ironically buying a Calippo.”

Meanwhile, Asda insists it has learnt the lessons of the previous two Christmases and appoints a yeti as its new supply chain director.

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