Corner shops have joined the chorus of UK companies urging the government to offer help with energy costs, warning that thousands risk going out of business without it (The Financial Times £).
The Association of Convenience Stores has written to the chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, saying that without financial support its members will be driven out of business (The Guardian).
Thousands of pubs face closure without urgent government support to soften the blow from soaring energy bills, the beer industry has said, putting jobs at risk in a sector still battling to recover from the Covid pandemic (The Guardian).
Business leaders have warned of a jobs bloodbath as soaring energy bills threaten to force hotels to close for the winter, pubs to slash their opening hours and factories to shut down (The Sunday Times £).
Energy suppliers are demanding millions of pounds upfront from major high street firms as hefty deposits for gas and electricity bills risk triggering a business cash crunch (The Telegraph).
Asda is preparing to accelerate a long-awaited move into Britain’s convenience store market with a £450m swoop on the Co-op Group’s petrol forecourt business, according to Sky News.
The 138-year-old Co-op Group, one of the world’s largest co-operatives and an employer of more than 60,000 people, is in advanced negotiations to dispose of about 130 fuel retailing sites to a trade buyer, with a deal potentially being agreed in the coming weeks (The Times £).
Bankers at the investment bank Rothschild are understood to be advising the Co-op on a sale, which is probably to a buyer that is already active in fuel retailing (The Guardian).
The Financial Times (£) takes a look at how UK food shoppers are starting to trade down from brands to own label as the cost of living crisis intensifies.
The average household will pay £37.41 more for food each month by December next year, a rise of about 12%, because of the impact of the drought on crops, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (The Times £).
Britain will plunge into recession before the end of this year and the economy will keep contracting throughout 2023, Goldman Sachs has warned (The Times £).
New National Lottery operator Allwyn said punters are still placing bets despite the rising cost of living, as revenue climbed 50 per cent in the first half of the year (The Mail).
The former UK boss of Lidl is predicting that German-owned grocery discounters will overtake the market leader Tesco within five years (The Mail). Ronny Gottschlich, who ran Lidl’s British operation for six years until 2016, also cast doubt on whether the new private equity owners of Morrisons and Asda will stay the course.
A presidential taskforce in Indonesia is investigating the recruitment of fruit pickers who say they took on debts of up to £5,000 to secure jobs in Kent. The Guardian revealed that Indonesian labourers harvesting berries on a farm that supplies Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Tesco had reported facing thousands of pounds in charges to unlicensed brokers in Bali to get work for a single season in the UK.
Shoppers looking for Mars bars have been encountering empty shelves and “out of stock” messages on supermarket websites, with some stores warning they are not expecting deliveries for two weeks or more (The Guardian).
The easing of costs related to a store closure programme and a recovery from the depths of the pandemic enabled Boots to make a small annual profit (The Times £). The pharmacy chain’s operating profit rose to £8m in the year to last August, an improvement on the £245m loss over the previous 12 months, according to accounts for Boots UK filed at Companies House.
The Sunday Times (£) featured an interview with Waitrose boss James Bailey on the dangers inflation poses to the upmarket chain.
An editorial in The Mail says the government must act now to safeguard UK food security as farmers start running out of gas.
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