Waitrose has been forced to rewrite several property deals after being found in breach of competition rules designed to prevent supermarkets from blocking rivals from opening near by (The Times £). Waitrose has admitted to signing deals with landlords halting other supermarkets from opening nearby for a decade, after an investigation by the UK competition watchdog (The Guardian). During an investigation between 2010 and 2019 into supermarket practices, the CMA found that Waitrose had conspired with landlords to prevent competing companies from opening stores (Sky News).

The boss of frozen-foods chain Iceland has warned that he has been forced to shelve new store openings after his latest energy bill rose by £20million, more than doubling the total. (The Daily Mail). The managing director of Iceland has said that the frozen food chain had to put expansion plans on hold because of a rise in energy bills (The Times £).

Iceland has contacted No 10 directly with a plea to prepare an immediate and radical cost of living package, amid warnings that broad help for businesses and direct cash aid will be needed to ease runaway energy costs. (The Guardian)

Starbucks in need of a triple shot under new boss Laxman Narasimhan, writes The Times. “Where once Starbucks was the trailblazer on the coffee bar frontier, now it is facing increasing competition from rivals such as Pret a Manger in the UK. In the US, it is under pressure to increase investment into improving wages, training and equipment to make the complex iced drinks which dominate the market there.” (The Times £)

Starbucks has been particularly badly affected in recent months by lockdowns in China, while it has also suspended share buybacks to spend more on wages and training in the US, the other market where it hopes to find more growth. (The Guardian)

Starbucks will be far harder to turn around than Reckitt, writes Matthew Lynn in The Telegraph. Laxman Narasimhan may be able to steady the ship, but it may never be growth stock again. (The Telegraph)

The activist investor Nelson Peltz was dealt a bloody nose after a London-listed investment vehicle that he manages announced that it was winding itself up and handing its assets directly back to shareholders (The Times £). Activist investor Nelson Peltz is winding up his London investment fund following a tussle with shareholders over the combative billionaire’s strategy (The Telegraph).

Rapid delivery firms are shedding riders and closing warehouses across the UK as the bubble bursts for ultra-quick grocery drop-off services. (The Guardian)

The UN’s Food Prices Index has fallen for the fifth month in a row, in a sign that one of the main pressures pushing up the cost of living around the world could ease. (The BBC)

Penderyn Distillery, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons, has struck a multimillion-pound deal with a Hong Kong-based firm to distribute its whisky more widely across mainland China. (The Times £)

British retailers are increasingly being viewed as takeover targets as the sector is hobbled by the cost of living squeeze. (The Daily Mail)

Zoran Bogdanovic, the chief executive of FTSE100 soft drinks bottling giant Coca-Cola HBC, received benefits of £736,000 last year, including an allowance for his partner, a £90,000 housing subsidy and a ‘cost of living’ payment of nearly £250,000. (The Daily Mail)

High wages are helping robot chefs, writes the FT. Commodity staples and many packaged foods today would be impossible to produce without the help of machines. The next step is introducing robots into restaurants. As labour costs soar, that could give cyborgs another mechanical foot in the door. (The Financial Times £)

Wetherspoons’ Tim Martin: ‘Get rid of the f***ing tariffs and Brexit works’. For all the trouble it’s caused, leaving the EU was right, says the founder and chairman of the pub chain. (The Times £)

The UN’s World Food Programme has described 2022 as ‘a year of unprecedented hunger’, with millions of people in dozens of countries facing famine. Yet significant amounts of farmland are being used to produce not food, but so-called biofuels. But could the global food crisis change that? (The Financial Times £)

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