It’s a slow start to the week following the long bank holiday weekend with little in the way of grocery news in the papers.
Britain’s high streets launched a fight back against shopping centres over the weekend, according to data provider Springboard. A 4.4% increase in footfall was reported by the high street over the past three days, with families “out in force” on the first day of schools’ summer half terms (The Daily Telegraph). Coastal and historic towns were favourite destination for shoppers, seeing a 14% year-on-year boost on Saturday. Footfall in retail parks fell every day over the weekend resulting in an overall 4.2% drop and shopping centres suffered a similar fate with a 3.1% overall decline.
The Guardian profiles two veteran rag trade brothers it says was partly responsible for the turnaround in Marks & Spencer’s clothing business. Neal and Mark Lindsey, 65 and 62, contributed as much as £72m to the bottom line last year, the paper adds, but were barely mentioned by CEO Marc Bolland as the retailer revealed its first rise in annual profits for four years. Recruited last year, the brothers have been changing the way M&S buys and makes its clothing.
Suntory Beverage & Food is planning to spend Y150bn ($1.2bn) to buy the vending machine business and two beverage brands from Japan Tobacco. It is the latest deal by Suntory Holdings, which completed a $16bn takeover of US spirits maker Jim Beam last year. Suntory will operate almost a third of the entire Japanese market in terms of the number of vending machines in the beverage sector (The Financial Times).
The owner of Costcutter has called for more mergers in the face of stiff competition from the supermarkets. Sir Michael Bibby made the call after Costcutter revealed higher losses and a fall in sales as Britain’s major grocers increase their presence in the convenience sector (The Financial Times).
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