Supermarkets recruiting lorry drivers by offering higher wages will lead to shortages of hauliers needed to deliver to schools, prisons and wholesalers, MPs have been warned (The Times £)

Price rises for consumers are “inevitable” as a consequence of the HGV driver shortage, the boss of Iceland has warned. (Sky News)

The government is being urged to “get a handle” on the supply chain crisis, as the chair of a cross-party commission created to scrutinise the UK’s post-Brexit trade deals said ministers need to act now to avoid empty shelves in the run-up to Christmas. (The Guardian)

Coca-Cola’s British and continental bottling operation has become the latest business to come under pressure from the supply chain crisis, with a “shortage of aluminium cans” hitting supplies (The Guardian). The bottling business for Coca-Cola in the UK and Europe has become the latest to come under supply chain pressure as it reported a shortage of aluminium cans (Sky News).

Exports of food and drink to the EU have suffered a “disastrous” decline in the first half of the year because of Brexit trade barriers, with sales of beef and cheese hit hardest (The Guardian). British food and drinks firms lost more than £2bn in sales after seeing a ‘disastrous’ fall in exports to the EU in the first half of the year, due to Brexit red-tape and pandemic disruption (The Daily Mail).

Food manufacturing in the UK is under such strain due to staff shortages that some production may have to move out of the country, a retail group has said. (The BBC)

Visits to UK shops rose in August to the highest level since the first Covid-19 lockdown, boosted by staycations and workers returning to offices, according to industry data (The Financial Times £). Shopper footfall is edging closer to pre-pandemic levels, with new figures indicating that staycations gave the high street a boost last month (Sky News).

The recruitment industry has warned that the end of the furlough scheme this month is unlikely to put much of a dent in the UK’s record number of job vacancies, in the short term at least. (Sky News)

Edinburgh has acquired a new landmark with the opening of the Johnnie Walker whisky emporium on the historic site once occupied by the Binns department store – a victim of the changing face of the High Street. (The Daily Mail)

Amazon is offering a £50 weekly bonus for permanent staff at some UK locations for turning up to work on time. The reward is for people who have 100% attendance, excluding time taken off for sickness linked to disability and Covid. (The BBC)

Nomura, Japan’s biggest brokerage, has split from the rest of the finance sector by asking its local staff to give up smoking during the working day, although Japan Tobacco said the move would not push it to change its longstanding business ties. (The Financial Times £)

The prohibition reflects a bleak outlook for the tobacco industry in Japan, writes The FT’s Lex column. Smoking rates have more than halved in the past decade. But the adult male rate of 29% remains one the highest in developed countries… The government prohibited indoor smoking in restaurants and offices last year. Such bans should worry Japan Tobacco. (The Financial Times £)

The boss of American salad chain Sweetgreen has deleted a social media post that argued “no vaccine nor mask will save us” and proposed taxes on processed food and “health mandates” to mitigate the cost of the pandemic. (The Times £)

In Australia both major supermarkets are feeling the strain of the east coast Covid-19 outbreaks, with thousands of staff forced to isolate and positive cases at distribution centres leaving some supermarket shelves bare. (The Guardian)

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