Cash

Campaigners say the chaos caused by the global IT outage last week underlines the risk of moving towards a cashless society (The Guardian).

The Guardian puts together an explainer on CrowdStrike, and how it caused a global Windows outage.

Another explainer in The Guardian examines how the CrowdStrike outage caused havoc across industries, including transport, retail, hospitals, television stations, sports clubs and financial systems.

Stock markets were firmly in the red after a global IT outage sparked chaos in financial centres across the world (Mail).

The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee is suing Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime energy drinks brand, accusing it of trademark infringement (BBC News).

John Lewis is to start stocking dozens of new homeware brands - including pots and pans from Stanley Tucci - as part of a drive to “reinvigorate” its shops and win back middle class customers from Marks & Spencer (The Sunday Telegraph £).

John Lewis customers will be able to give their favourite leather jacket a new lease of life or have a cushion cover fixed, as part of a repairs partnership with Timpson Group, the business famed for offering ex-offenders a second chance (The Guardian).

Indonesian workers who paid thousands of pounds to travel to Britain and pick fruit at a farm supplying most big supermarkets have been sent home within weeks for not picking fast enough (The Guardian).

UK Treasury ministers are softening up public opinion for a tough autumn Budget and possible tax rises, after a near £5bn overshoot in public spending led to renewed claims they have been handed a toxic legacy (Financial Times £).

Fears of a tax raid by Labour have prompted business owners to bring forward plans to sell up, research suggests (The Times £).

The Sunday Times (£) interviews Ocado Retail chief Hannah Gibson, who explains how the online grocer sharpened its offer, while still offering items as as niche as plantain crisps and edible flowers.

The City Whispers column in The Mail on Sunday reckons Morrisons boss Rami Baitieh is taking inspiration from Ocado during his turnaround attempt. He told the Yorkshire Post last week: ‘O is observe. C is compare. A is analyse. D is diagnose. O is operate. I told that to the team at Ocado and they were very happy.’

Activist investor Elliott Global Management has accumulated a sizeable minority stake in coffee chain Starbucks, according to two people familiar with the matter, the latest in a series of campaigns targeting large-cap companies (Financial Times £).

High prices and slow service leave bitter taste at Starbucks, writes The Times (£). The world’s biggest coffee chain has fallen out of favour but appears to have caught the eye of the activist investor Elliott.

Tea is a British institution and 100m cups will be drunk today, but experts are warning that our beloved brew could get pricier as extreme weather causes misery for growers in India and Kenya (The Guardian). The paper cites a recent analysis in The Grocer pointing to bigger hikes.

The Lex column in Financial Times (£) takes a look at the wine market’s future following last week’s Pernod Ricard sale and concludes it is “far from rosé”. Global consumption has been in decline since it peaked in 2007, the paper notes.

The Sunday Times (£) asks why have British drinkers gone sour on Jacob’s Creek? “The Australian brand brought the delights of drinkable, affordable wine to a thirsty public — but now it’s a rarity on supermarket shelves. What happened?”

 An interview with Veuve Cliquot CEO Jean-Marc Gallot in Financial Times (£) finds his efforts to broaden occasions when people drink bubbly buts up against tradition.

The Financial Times (£) takes a look at how LVMH is poised to benefit from the Olympics in Paris.

Superdrug boss Peter Macnab calls for business rates to be reformed (The Mail on Sunday). He sees change as essential to creation of ‘vibrant’ shopping hubs.

Family-run sausage maker Heck has bought a bus to transport elderly people to markets to combat rural isolation and boost local trade (The Times £). Heck will ferry people in a pink minibus from villages near its factory in Bedale, North Yorkshire, to Northallerton every Friday.

A column by Harry Wallop in The Times (£) says supermarkets’ loyalty cards play to our irrational decision-making.

The Guardian focuses on cultivated food: from lab grown burgers to medicinal berries. “An array of biologically engineered food and drink could help to solve ethical and environmental concerns,” the paper writes

The Sunday Times (£) looks at why Pret A Manger called time on free coffee. “The chain spent millions on its coffee subscription scheme,” it writes. “Now co-founder Sinclair Beecham is back — and Club Pret is no more.”

BBC News looks at the decline of the ‘free’ coffee.

The Sunday Times (£) asks is bottled water better for you than tap. “We guzzle around 10 million bottles of water a day. But is anything wrong with plain old tap?”

The Guardian asks if robot weedkillers could replace the need for pesticides.

The Observer looks at how Britain fell in love with cheese beyond cheddar. “From halloumi to provoleta to comté, sales of overseas cheeses are up as UK tastes turn to the exotic.”

Retail sales contracted sharply in June, dragged down by poor weather and uncertainty ahead of the general election (The Times £).

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