Media Bites 6 December: AG Barr/Boost, Sainsbury’s, supply crisis, retail sales

Irn Bru and Rubicon maker AG Barr has snapped up energy drinks company Boost in a deal worth up to £32m (The Mail).

A husband-and-wife team from Leeds who have spent more than two decades creating an energy drink business have collected £20m from selling it to the Scottish group that owns Irn-Bru (The Times £).

Sainsbury’s will invest an additional £50m towards keeping its products affordable for customers amid the cost-of-living crisis (The Mail).

A second article in The Mail on the same story focuses on Christmas dinner. Sainsbury’s is ramping up the supermarket price war ahead of Christmas with a £50m cost-cutting drive, the paper writes. The UK’s second biggest grocer has promised to cut the cost of a Christmas roast to £4 per head – cheaper than last year – despite rampant inflation.

The UK is “sleepwalking” into a food supply crisis and the government must step in to help farmers, the National Farmers Union (NFU) has warned (BBC News). Yields of tomatoes and other crops will likely slump to record lows this year, it said, with potential supply problems ahead as already seen with eggs.

Black Friday pushed the value of retail sales up by more than 4% in November but inflation masked a large drop in volumes, new figures show (The Times £).

UK consumers are tightening their belts in the run-up to the festive period, according to new data that showed retail sales growth lagging far behind inflation in November and pointed to the impact of the cost of living crisis (The Financial Times £).

Britain’s retailers benefited from a November sales boost fuelled by Black Friday discounts and colder weather as consumers bought winter coats, hot water bottles and hooded blankets, according to industry data (The Guardian).

Families may be unable to feed babies safely, campaigners fear, because government vouchers no longer cover the cost of formula (The Times £).

Vulnerable parents may be forced to resort to unsafe practices to feed their babies because of sharp increase in the cost of infant formula, charities have warned (The Guardian). The price of the cheapest brand of baby formula has leapt by 22%, according to analysis by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.