UK households face a heightened risk of shortages of carrots and leeks this year as the domestic farming sector struggles to adapt to more extreme weather and higher input costs, the president of the National Farmers’ Union has warned (The Financial Times £).
Sales volumes for Reckitt Benckiser’s products sank 5.8% in the final quarter as demand for Lysol disinfectant fell and tough price negotiations with retailers removed some products temporarily from the shelves (The Financial Times £).
Nicandro Durante, the interim chief executive and former boss of British American Tobacco, said sales volumes in its hygiene business had declined, with negotiations over price increases leading to some products being “out of the trade for a couple of months” (The Times £).
Reckitt Benckiser has credited an infant formula shortage, as well as a longer cold and flu season, for achieving a bumper annual performance. The consumer goods business revealed that net turnover increased by 9.2% last year following price hikes, and strong growth in its health and nutrition divisions offsetting waning demand for disinfectant products (The Mail).
Just Eat Takeaway has taken a near €5bn writedown on the multibillion euro mergers that created Europe’s biggest food delivery group, revealing the cost of buying rivals at the top of the sector’s lockdown-driven boom (The Financial Times £).
The company’s losses ballooned to €5.7bn for 2022, compared with €1bn the year before, as it took impairment charges on the merger with Takeaway.com and the acquisition of Grubhub, as well as a €275m book loss on the sale of its stake in the Brazilian delivery app iFood (The Times £).
A golf course owned by the John Lewis Partnership for almost a century has been put up for sale as the department store owner battles to cut costs (The Telegraph).
John Lewis will close Winter Hill Golf Club in Cookham, near Maidenhead in Berkshire, by the end of next month (The Times £).
Andrew Bailey has signalled that financial markets have been wrong in their growing belief over the past month that the Bank of England will need to impose many more interest rate rises to bring inflation under control (The Financial Times £).
The governor of the Bank of England has hinted that more interest rate rises may be “appropriate” to contain inflation but said that no decisions had yet been made (The Times £).
The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, has signalled interest rates may have peaked after 10 successive increases in the official cost of borrowing since December 2021. Speaking in London, Bailey said Threadneedle Street would assess the impact of tighter policy on the economy before sanctioning any fresh moves (The Guardian).
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