Entrepreneur Luke Johnson is reviving plans for a sale of his Gail’s Bakery chain months after his investment in Patisserie Valerie erupted into the biggest crisis of his career. Johnson has begun sounding out bankers about an auction of part or all of Bread Holdings, Gail’s parent company. (Sky News)

Suppliers to the supermarket chain Iceland have had their insurance cover cut, in an unusual move that underlines nervousness about Brexit’s possible impact. Euler Hermes, a leading credit insurer, reduced the cover to suppliers in the summer. Its rival, Atradius, is said to have put the retailer on watch for a possible cut. (The Times £)

Business leaders expressed frustration last night that parliament had been unable to resolve Brexit uncertainty, and called for reassurances from the government that there was no prospect of leaving without a deal in 11 days (The Times £). Big business has offered a cautious backing for the Government’s new Brexit deal ahead of the knife-edge vote in Parliament (The Daily Mail).

Consumer confidence is weakening due to concerns about job security and continuing uncertainty about Brexit (The Times £).

Scotch on the rocks as trade tariffs threaten US exports - small distillers of single malts to be hardest hit by EU trade spat and impact of Brexit. (The Financial Times £)

Morrisons has accelerated its push into online by deepening its ties with Amazon and sealing a tie-up with Deliveroo to launch a hot-food delivery service this month. (The Times £)

Meanwhile, The Times (£) interviews Morrisons CEO David Potts – the low-profile executive who turned down the chance to be a footballer and rose from the local deli counter to a place among Britain’s corporate chiefs. (The Times £)

The Guardian has a piece on “the UK retail billionaires who shun the limelight”, looking at the down-to-earth brothers Tom and Joe Morris who own Home Bargains, a debt-free chain of shops worth £3.6bn. (The Guardian)

The ‘death of the high street’ may be overstated, with independent shops booming across the UK, says Which? Despite a number of well known retailers disappearing from Britain’s High Streets in recent years, new research shows that they have been replaced by smaller businesses that have prospered (The Telegraph). New research has shown that independent stores are outperforming major retailers on UK high streets, amid worry for the future of the traditional shopping experience (Sky News).

Britain’s biggest companies have issued more profit warnings this year than at any time since the height of the financial crisis more than a decade ago, fuelling fears of an impending squeeze on corporate earnings. (The Telegraph)

A hedge fund that shared a multibillion-pound bounty after buying Lehman Brothers loans is among those circling debt-laden dining chain Pizza Express. (The Telegraph)

A large consignment of Chinese antibiotics suspected to be destined for unregulated use on a poultry farm in Northern Ireland has been seized at a British airport, raising fears of a new food scandal. (The Guardian)

Treasury Wine Estates chief executive Michael Clarke will retire from the Australian producer late next year, sending the company’s shares down by more than a tenth. (The Financial Times £)

Coca-Cola has cautioned that the strong dollar is likely to crimp profits next year more than it expected, dimming an otherwise bullish outlook after demand for its eponymous drinks brand and new products boosted quarterly sales (The Financial Times £). Brexit worries have hurt sales at Costa Coffee, the boss of Coca-Cola, the chain’s American owner, said yesterday (The Times £).

Shares in Danone fell as much as 8% on Friday morning, their biggest single-day decline in a decade, after the French food group lowered its full-year sales outlook. (The Financial Times £)

Borough Market has teamed up with start-up Good Sixty, which is providing the technology and logistics behind an online click-and-collect service or paid-for delivery. (The Times £)

Sainsbury’s has become the first major supermarket to stop selling fireworks at its 2,300 stores across the UK. (The BBC)

The rapid spread of African swine fever has taken its toll on companies operating in China’s corn sector, where prices have plummeted after a sharp fall in demand for hog feed, the primary use of the crop. (The Financial Times £)

Two countries in south-east Asia, Indonesia and the Philippines, are attempting a low-key approach to regulation of the nascent e-cigarette industry, even as it risks being strangled in the cradle amid a global backlash. (The Financial Times £)

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