A stellar Christmas for Aldi gets blanket coverage this morning. The Times writes that Aldi has had another record-breaking Christmas as Britons increasingly turned to discount grocery shops. The discounter said year-on-year sales rose 15% in December taking its annual revenues above the £10bn mark for the first time. The Mail notes that Aldi’s Aberdeen Angus beef roasting joints, Irish cream liqueur and mince pies were among the best sellers over the period, with sales of its luxury range up 30%, making the supermarket a Christmas winner. The Telegraph flags comments from Aldi boss Matthew Barnes, who said that it was one of the group’s busiest-ever Christmases “as millions of festive shoppers switched to Aldi from more expensive food retailers”. The Guardian adds that Aldi is increasing pay for store staff after it enjoyed a bumper Christmas.
Sales at Nisa soared over Christmas, partly thanks to new supply deals with Costcutter and McColl’s following the collapse of wholesaler Palmer & Harvey, The Telegraph writes. Total sales climbed 17.7% to around £277m in the 10 weeks to 31 December, while sales of fresh food soared 23.1% to £43m. Like-for-like sales grew 1.7%.
Whitbread has announced the appointment of Adam Crozier as chairman following the decision by Richard Baker to retire after three and a half years at the head of the Premier Inn and Costa Coffee operator, The Times reports.
Steinhoff CFO Ben La Grange has stepped down at the stricken South African retailer, a month after the start of the accounting scandal that has already claimed the group’s chief executive and chairman (The Financial Times).
Colman’s Mustard is to leave Norwich after more than 200 years in the city, The Telegraph reports. Unilever, the owner of Colman’s, has confirmed it is to close its operations in Norwich with the loss of around 68 jobs following a review of its manufacturing site.
Falling sales at Boots pharmacies in the UK weighed on the fortunes of its owner, The Times notes. Walgreens said that the retail market “continues to be challenging” for Boots UK, which reported a 1.4 per cent drop in comparable retail sales for the quarter.
The City Insider column in The Financial Times asks former M&S chief Stuart Rose to shed light on the retailer’s deal to sell its Hong Kong operation to Al-Futtaim earlier this week.
MPs have called for a 25p “latte levy” to be added to the price of a takeaway coffee to cut back on the billions of disposable cups thrown away each year in the UK (The Financial Times). The environmental audit committee said, in a report published on Friday, that the government should also set a target to ensure all paper coffee cups are recycled by 2023.
Waitrose has become the first UK supermarket to ban sales of so-called energy drinks to under-16s, amid concerns about high levels of sugar and caffeine and their impact on children’s health and behaviour (The Guardian).
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