Christmas is getting earlier every year, an analysis from the Guardian has found. Christmas shopping now starts in summer (Assosia), Christmas-themed songs reach top charts between the end of October and beginning of November, and both retailers and food to go outlets are guilty of “premature pies” as mince pies make their way back to shelves and menus as early as 60 days before the big day.
Support is swarming in from all corners of the world after Neal’s Yard Dairy suffered a £300,000 fraud loss earlier this year, The Times reports. Posing as a reputable French distributor, the fraudsters ordered 950 uncut cheddar wheels and collected them from Neal’s Yard’s Bermondsey factory before disappearing.
Chipping in, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has warned consumers to look out for “posh cheese going for cheap” (Sky News). The chef shared disbelief at the theft, saying: “Are they going to unpeel it from the cloth, and cut it and grate it and get rid of it in the fast-food industry, or in the commercial industry? I don’t know - it feels like a really weird thing to nick.”
M&S is introducing self-service checkouts in its changing rooms to cut queuing time for customers, according to The Telegraph. The new tech will be installed in over 100 stores by 2028, as part of a broader shop revamp by the retailer.
John Lewis Partnership will hire 12,500 temporary workers during the festive period, says The Standard. It will be the biggest ever festive recruitment the company has conducted.
In other JLP news, revamping of the company’s Oxford Street store is afoot as the retailer opens its new and improved beauty hall, The Guardian has revealed. The new beauty hall is 25% bigger and hosts as many as 175 brands. The revamp comes as Britons go back to affordable luxury, pampering, and “prioritising looking good”, having spent £4bn in the category over the past 12 months.
Another Guardian story sees Uber Eats once again in troublesome waters over workers’ rights. A leaked recording has exposed a McDonald’s manager in Northern Ireland reprimanding the platform’s delivery drivers, alleging he had previously fired an Uber Eats employee for “being cheeky”. Formally, restaurants have no power to remove couriers, but they can complain to Uber Eats. The latter has been accused by the campaign group Worker Info Exchange of giving restaurants power to “micromanage” and exploit its workers.
English winemakers are calling for tax breaks in the upcoming budget in order to stay afloat, the Financial Times reported. Winemakers said the excise duty levied on wine by HMRC was putting them at a disadvantage to European producers. While excise duty is rarely applied to European wines and is usually under 1 euro, the current UK system applies £2.65 for wines which ABV is between 11.5% and 14.5%.
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