A third of UK households are now buying groceries at Marks & Spencer after the retailer invested in improving the quality of thousands of products, reports The Telegraph. Citing NIQ data, the title says the retailer has wooed 800,000 new customers over the past four weeks, and is the fastest growing traditional supermarket since August.
M&S now holds the same share of the market as rival Waitrose, in another sign CEO ’s strategy of investing in larger food halls and launching new products is paying off (The Daily Mail).
A couple of titles have picked up on BrewDog’s full year financial results – you can read The Grocer’s coverage here.
Delayed accounts posted yesterday revealed losses doubled in the final year under the stewardship of the brewer’s co-founder James Watt (The Guardian).
The last time Brewdog reported a pre-tax profit was the £1.1m it achieved in 2019 (CityAM).
The proposed takeover of London-listed ingredients company Tate & Lyle by Advent International, first reported by The Financial Times, also features heavily in the morning’s papers. Citing people “with direct knowledge of the matter” The FT reports the US buyout firm is preparing a bid that would exceed Tate & Lyle’s £2.8bn market value.
Shares in Tate & Lyle, which makes ingredients such as artificial sweeteners, jumped by as much as 13% on Wednesday (The Guardian).
A buyout would represent another blow for London’s stock market, with Tate & Lyle being a founding member of the FT 30 index almost nine decades ago (The Daily Mail).
Unbranded toys made outside Europe but sold within the EU by online retailers including Temu and Amazon pose a risk to the safety of young children, reports The Financial Times. Toys of Europe tested more than 100 products sold on 10 online platforms, and concluded 79% did not meet EU safety standards. It called for a loophole that allows platforms to waive responsibility for goods sold by third-party sellers from overseas to be closed in order to product children from potentially dangerous toys.
Mohsin Issa has struck his first deal since stepping down as Asda chief executive, ploughing £10m into sports supplements company Applied Nutrition, reports The Telegraph. Moshin, who stepped down as Asda boss in September, is among those preparing to buy shares in Applied Nutrition, which is expected to float later this month.
Wayne and Coleen Rooney are also set to take a stake in Applied Nutrition when it floats in London (The Daily Mail).
Tesco has struck a deal to buy enough solar power to run 144 of its large supermarkets. The retailer is to buying almost two-thirds of the entire electricity output from the Cleve Hill solar park in Kent. The site will provide Tesco with up to 10% of its UK electricity demand over 15 years (The Guardian).
A professional gang of Romanian shoplifters are being hunted by police after stealing £73,000 worth of champagne and other luxury goods, reports The Telegraph. The “mafia style” operation is being is run like a business to steal champagne to supply to mainland Europe, according to the National Business Crime Solution (NBCS). The champagne gang is responsible for 60 shoplifting incidents across the UK, from Gateshead to Bournemouth, according to NBCS data.
And finally, bakery chain Greggs is to open a 16-seat Champagne bar at Christmas. The bar in Fenwick food hall in Newcastle will serve six of Gregg’s best-selling products alongside Champagne from France and sparkling wines from Italy (The Telegraph).
Guests will be encouraged to ring vintage crystal bells in the 1920’s Paris style bar to order refills of wines such as Louis Roederer Cristal, which costs £425 a bottle. Cheaper wines will be available, however, and mains will cost less than £5 (The Guardian).
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