The squeeze on family finances looks set to intensify as the world’s biggest consumer goods companies raise prices (The Mail). In a string of updates, the owners of products from Heinz baked beans and Cadbury chocolate to Evian water and Dettol floor cleaner outlined the scale of price hikes facing customers.
The ketchup and baked beans group Kraft Heinz and Reckitt Benckiser, the maker of Dettol, Nurofen and Strepsils, have both revealed they hiked prices by double digits in the spring and that this helped to drive better-than-expected sales (The Guardian).
Reckitt Benckiser expects a long-term increase in sales of cold and flu products as a result of Covid-19 becoming part of everyday life, the Strepsils maker said as it increased its sales guidance for the year (The Financial Times £).
A baby formula supply crisis in the United States, price increases and strong sales of cold and flu products after Covid restrictions were lifted has led to bumper sales at Reckitt (The Times £).
The group’s quarterly like-for-like revenue jumped by 11.9% on a constant currency basis, far ahead of the 6.8% growth analysts had expected (The Mail).
McDonald’s restaurants in the UK are raising the price of their signature 99p cheeseburger for the first time in more than a decade, as the fast-food chain becomes the latest company to pass on surging inflation to customers (The Financial Times £).
The price will rise to £1.19 from 99p, according to the fast food chain’s UK chief (The Times £). A number of other items on the menu most affected by inflation will also rise by between 10p and 20p.
The chief executive of McDonald’s UK and Ireland, Alistair Macrow, said it was committed to selling food at affordable prices but cost pressures meant it was having to “make some tough choices” (The Guardian).
A business editorial in The Telegraph is headlined: ‘Greedflation is the latest crisis hurting struggling shoppers’. It asks if it’s unfair to expect multibillion-pound corporate beasts to absorb a greater proportion of rising costs.
Strong demand for cold and flu medicines and products to treat Omicron symptoms has led to a surge in sales at Haleon, prompting the newly demerged consumer healthcare company to upgrade its full-year forecasts (The Times £).
British American Tobacco’s profits have plunged by a quarter following its decision to withdraw from the Russian market (The Mail).
British American Tobacco has made a £450m provision related to a US criminal investigation into suspected sanctions busting (The Times £).
Iceland will be hit hard by soaring energy bills this year because of its huge reliance on freezers (The Mail).
Britain’s exporters have seen their overseas trade stagnate over the past year despite strong growth in domestic demand for their products and booming export markets, according to a survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (The Guardian).
Marston’s has blamed Britain’s recent heatwave, which saw temperatures hit record levels, for a decline in food orders at its establishments (The Mail).
A ‘Big Read’ in The Financial Times (£) asks ‘how bad will the global food crisis get?’. “Food commodity prices are falling, but experts say global production and hunger rates might be even worse in 2023.”
No comments yet