July

Philip Clarke left Tesco. Dave Lewis arrived.

Costcutter’s switch from Nisa to P&H caused chaos. It was bittersweet news for Asda staff as a consultation revealed the number of redundancies had halved to 1,360 as part of their controversial management restructure. And SACN’s guidance that the recommended intake of sugar should be slashed in half left a nasty taste in the mouth for purveyors of sweet treats.

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August

Political unrest filtered out to the fmcg industry as Vladimir Putin banned foreign food imports, with knock-on effects that perhaps belied the less than 1% of total exports from the UK they accounted for. Redundancies kicked off at Morrisons as part of a management restructure scheme, while the consumer’s love of discounters kept growing and growing.

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September

Tesco admitted to a £250m profits black hole, with CEO Dave Lewis vowing a full investigation into just what had gone on behind closed doors. The industry also took centre stage in the debate over Scottish independence, with warnings grocery prices could go up in the event of a ‘yes’ vote, infuriating the SNP.

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