Sales at Britain’s supermarkets grew at their fastest rate in five years this spring as inflation added an extra £133 onto the average household’s annual bill (The Telegraph). Booming sales of ice-cream, gin and cider during the heatwave have combined with a jump in inflation to deliver the biggest rise in supermarket sales in more than five years (The Guardian). Booming ice-cream sales during the recent heatwave helped supermarkets storm to their best results in five years (The Daily Mail).

Supermarkets have recorded their highest sales growth in five years in a marked recovery for one of Britain’s most competitive sectors (The Times £). Sales at British supermarkets rose at their fastest rate in five years over the past three months, but discount retailers and cheaper non-branded products continued to see the strongest increases (The Financial Times £)

Kit Kat maker Nestlé has launched a 20bn Swiss franc share buyback program just days after prolific US activist investor Dan Loeb disclosed a huge stake in the world’s largest food company and urged it to take such a step (The Telegraph). Nestlé made no mention of the 1.25% stake built up by Mr Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point. It said the buyback decision had been taken as part of a review of its capital structure started earlier this year. (The Financial Times £)

“Loeb’s plans for Nestlé are less than radical”, writes the FT. Activist should not receive credit for pushing group in direction it was already going. (The Financial Times £)

The Co-op Bank could announce a £700m rescue deal this morning that will leave its former owner with as little as a 1% stake. Last night directors of the Co-op Bank were meeting to agree the final details of a bailout for the lender, its third since the discovery of a £1.5 billion hole in its finances four years ago, that will leave a group of Wall Street hedge funds with almost total control of Britain’s “ethical bank” (The Times £). The board of the Co-operative Bank were set to gather on Tuesday night to apply the finishing touches to a £700m rescue deal led by a handful of American hedge funds, potentially ending months of uncertainty for the struggling lender’s four million customers (Sky News).

Heineken has been given a provisional green light by the Competition and Markets Authority to complete the £1.1bn acquisition of 1,900 pubs from Punch Taverns (The Times £). Heineken has offered to sell pubs in 33 areas across the UK in a bid to get the green light from competition authorities for its takeover of part of Punch Taverns (The Telegraph). Heineken has offered to sell some of its pubs after the competition watchdog raised concerns about its acquisition of Punch Taverns (The Daily Mail).

The controversial businessman Sir Philip Green sold the BHS business to dodge responsibility for its insolvent pension schemes if the firm should go bust, says the Pensions Regulator (The BBC). The Pensions Regulator has admitted that it should have intervened earlier and more robustly over the troubles in BHS pension funds that left 20,000 present and former employees facing shortfalls in their promised retirement incomes (The Times £). Sir Philip Green made six rejected attempts to settle a dispute over the pension liabilities of BHS before regulators launched legal action last year, according to an official postmortem that has reopened the battle of words over the UK retailer’s collapse. (The Financial Times £)

Ocado has sent a self-driving truck trundling through the backstreets of Woolwich, south-east London, as part of the UK’s first trial of autonomous grocery deliveries. (The Guardian)

L’Oréal signed a contract on Tuesday to sell The Body Shop to the Brazilian cosmetics maker Natura Cosméticos as it seeks to grow internationally. (The Financial Times £)

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