‘Billionaires, bad deals and bold rivals,’ The Times (£) takes a deeper dive into what has gone wrong at Asda. The paper says the once-cherished supermarket has seen a dramatic cooling off in its love affair with shoppers since being taken private.
It follows The Grocer exploring the story in detail earlier this month, examining where Morrisons is going right and what Asda is getting wrong. Read more here.
Families are using improvements in living standards to top up their savings rather than splash out on retail purchases, according to a survey by the Centre for Economics and Business Research and Asda (The Times £).
Food and drink producers recorded the strongest growth in output of any sector last month as inflationary pressures drove manufacturing price hikes, fresh data from Lloyds Bank shows (Mail).
Bars offering activities such as axe-throwing, mini-golf, darts and ping pong have driven the UK hospitality industry to its first quarterly increase in outlet numbers in two years, new research shows (Financial Times £).
Rick Stein has seen operating losses at his Stein Group restaurant, cookery school and meal kits business narrow sharply to £250,000 compared with a near £1.5 million loss previously (The Times £).
The Tempus shares column in The Times (£) thinks Starbucks looks “too frothy for comfort” even if the market is impressed by new boss Brian Niccol. The paper says the coffee chain’s problems are far more complex than anything he faced in the past and labels the stock as ‘avoid’.
The owner of the global convenience store chain 7-Eleven has received an offer from a Canadian rival to buy the company, in what could be Japan’s biggest ever foreign takeover (The Guardian).
US antitrust regulators are likely to challenge any proposal by Canadian retailer Alimentation Couche-Tard to combine with the Japanese operator of 7-Eleven, two people briefed on the matter said, over concerns a deal would increase prices for consumers and damage the labour market (Financial Times £).
An opinion column in Financial Times (£) looks at the risks facing Australia as migratory ducks and geese return to the country in September that may be infected with the H5N1 bird flu variant.
A comment piece in The Times (£) reckons attacks on the Kamala Harris plan to ban ‘price-gouging’ are unfair. “The Democratic party’s nominee for the US presidency has not proposed price controls, but rather scrutiny of the market power wielded by big corporations,” the article says.
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