Keir Starmer has scrapped plans to put “Not for EU” stickers on milk, butter, meat and fish sold in British supermarkets. The government is understood to have told UK food makers that it will indefinitely postpone new post-Brexit labelling rules, which had been drawn up by the previous government (The Telegraph £).
Ministers are reviewing plans set out by the previous administration to label meat and dairy products sold across the UK “not for EU” consumption as part of a deal on post-Brexit trading arrangements. The policy had been part of a package of proposals to implement the Windsor framework (Financial Times £). The Food and Drink Federation had estimated the cost to the industry of meeting the new labelling requirements at up to £250m a year, and warned that it would increase the price of products for shoppers (The Guardian).
The Financial Times (£) takes a deep dive into the news Mohsin Issa will step down from running Asda. Stuart Rose, Asda’s chair, and Rob Hattrell, an executive at TDR, the private equity firm that owns a majority stake in the supermarket, will take over day-to-day responsibility for leading the supermarket.
Asda said Issa would remain a co-owner of the business and a non-executive of the board (The Telegraph £).
“A return to executive duties at the age of 75 probably wasn’t what Stuart Rose envisaged when he hopped onboard the Issa brothers/TDR Capital buyout vehicle”, writes The Guardian’s Nils Pratley.
“Rose his work cut out at Asda,” according to a Times commentary. “He is more than aware of this, having recently called its performance ’embarrassing’.”
John Lewis’ sales have “significantly” risen since it brought back its ‘never knowingly undersold’ pledge this month. After a period of decline, the department store and Waitrose owner said it is on course for significantly higher profits this year (Daily Mail).
Shares in Imperial Leather owner PZ Cussons slumped after a plunge in the currency of Nigeria. The stock fell 15%, or 15.7p, to 87.5p after the consumer goods firm swung to a loss of £96m for the 12 months to the end of May, against a £62m profit the year before (Daily Mail).
Britain’s biggest food and drink firms are doing too little to tackle the climate emergency and are producing “staggering” amounts of greenhouse gases, campaigners claim. The 10 companies that manufacture more of the UK’s food than anyone else produce more carbon emissions between them than even the aviation industry, a Bite Back report says (The Guardian).
A frantic hunt by chocolate manufacturers for high-grade cocoa has left a backlog of old, poor-quality beans lying in London’s warehouses, leading to a rare divergence in prices between the UK and the US. Last month, cocoa futures traded in New York rose strongly, peaking above $10,000 last week, while London prices fell (Financial Times £).
The company behind the UK arm of the TGI Fridays restaurant chain, Hostmore, which is listed on the London stock market, has said it plans to appoint administrators, putting the future of its 87 outlets and 4,500 employees in doubt (The Guardian). There is a chance that the TGI Fridays restaurants may yet survive. The company said it continued to seek a buyer for its 87 company-owned stores across the UK (The Times). It is unclear whether it will secure a buyer for the entire chain, or will manage to sell only some of the outlets (Daily Mail).
“Estée Lauder needs a new look,” writes the Financial Times’ Lex column (£). “For decades, the maker of MAC cosmetics and La Mer skin care has been a dominant force in the $500bn-a-year global beauty industry. Revenue more than tripled between 2000 and 2022 as shoppers loaded up on its pricey lipsticks, face creams and fragrances. But the company has lost its glow. Sales and profit have fallen in the past two fiscal years.”
Nick Read is to end his tenure as chief executive of the Post Office as he prepares to give evidence to the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal (Sky News).
The Independent looks at why Brits are ”suddenly so obsessed with smash burgers”.
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