Costa Coffee has announced up to 1,650 redundancies after becoming the latest high street business to be hit by the dearth of city centre shoppers (The Times £). Around 1,650 Costa Coffee baristas are facing redundancy after the cafe chain said it did not know when trading might return to pre-coronavirus levels (The Telegraph). Costa Coffee is to cut up to 1,650 jobs in its cafes – more than one in 10 of its workforce, as it said trading remained challenging during the Covid-19 pandemic (The Guardian, Sky News, The BBC, The Daily Mail).

The company said on Thursday that 2,400 of its 2,700 stores were now open but that there was a “high level of uncertainty” as to when sales would return to pre-Covid-19 levels (The Financial Times £)

Pret a Manger is to launch a monthly subscription service offering up to five drinks a day in a bid to get customers back to stores following a sales slump due to the pandemic (The Guardian, The BBC). Pret A Manger is to deliver dinners to city dwellers and open more suburban branches as it fights to revive its business after the sudden loss of its traditional office worker clientele (The Financial Times £)

Ocado has temporarily suspended deliveries to its employees as the online grocer battles to clear a backlog following a new tie-up with Marks & Spencer (The Guardian, Sky News, The BBC).

Well-known veterans from the retail industry are in line for multimillion-pound windfalls from The Hut Group’s £4.5 billion stock market listing. Sir Terry Leahy, Sir Tom Hunter, Terry Green and Angus Monro will benefit from the float after backing the online retail business as it grew rapidly (The Times £).

Alex Brummer in The Mail highlights The Hut Group’s plans for executive chairman and chief executive Matthew Moulding to hang on to both jobs. He writes: “One fears too many of those involved in the Hut’s IPO might have spent a little too much time luxuriating at the THG Experience – Hale Country Club & Spa. They should have been more focused on making sure the upcoming offer was something investors could fully trust.” (The Daily Mail)

The trend for people to shop more locally has spurred plans by the Co-operative Group to open 65 new stores by the end of this year, creating 1,000 jobs (The Times £, Sky News). The Co-op is to create 1,000 jobs as it opens 50 new stores, becoming the latest supermarket to expand during the coronavirus pandemic (The Guardian).

Amazon will increase its UK workforce by a third as the US group responds to an internet spree unleashed by coronavirus lockdown measures that have forced shoppers to stay at home (The Financial Times £). The giant ecommerce group has already hired 3,000 new employees this year and plans to take on a further 7,000 by Christmas, increasing its headcount in the UK to more than 40,000 (The Times £, The Daily Mail, The BBC). Amazon plans to hire another 7,000 new workers in the UK this year in a move branded as “a clear vote of confidence” in the country by Business Secretary Alok Sharma (The Telegraph).

The new recruits, including engineers, IT specialists, warehouse workers, and health and safety experts, will work across more than 50 sites, including Amazon’s corporate offices and two new delivery warehouses which will open in the autumn in Durham and Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. (The Guardian)

The public’s reluctance to return to the office or use public transport is having a “devastating effect” on shops in town and city centres across the UK and will lead to more job losses and store closures, the British Retail Consortium has warned (The Telegraph, Sky News).

Retailers have told Boris Johnson that his government must do more to persuade the public that it is safe to travel to work and shop or risk needless job losses and store closures, as data showed city centres suffering from a lack of office workers. (The Guardian)

More than one shop in ten is empty after a string of leading chains shut stores and others collapsed into administration because of the coronavirus downturn. (The Times £)

The popularity of Rishi Sunak’s “eat out to help out” restaurant discounts exceeded the UK Treasury’s estimates, with 100m meals eaten at an interim taxpayer cost of £522m by the end of August (The Financial Times £). At least 100m subsidised meals were eaten by diners in the UK in August following a last-minute rush by the public to take advantage of the government’s month-long “eat out to help out” scheme, the Treasury stated (The Guardian, Sky News, The BBC).

JAB Holdings is preparing to appoint a new chief executive to its €19bn coffee business, as freshly listed JDE Peet’s grapples with shifts in consumer drinking patterns triggered by the pandemic. (The Financial Times £)

The Hungry Jack’s chain controlled by billionaire Jack Cowin is in a legal pickle – on a sesame seed bun – after rival burger group McDonald’s accused it of ripping off the famous Big Mac. (The Guardian)

Coronavirus has managed to do for Campbell Soup what years of marketing spend could not: get American consumers to trade in their bone broths and kale salads for the company’s canned soups. (The Financial Times £)

Yum China is set to price its secondary offering in Hong Kong at a slight discount to its US share price, putting the fast food-chain operator on track to raise more than $2bn. (The Financial Times £)

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