Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis has told the BBC that planning for the new Brexit deadline of the end of October will be more difficult because the supply network will be full of Christmas stock. He said there would be less capacity for stockpiling longer-life items and a no-deal Brexit could mean tariffs and border delays that interrupt supplies of some products. However, he also said that leaving the European Union could provide the UK with opportunities. Lewis went on to talk about other key challenges, including demands for healthy eating, cutting waste and plastic-free packaging. In another BBC report, the United Kingdom Warehousing Association warned warehouses were “full”, raising doubts about UK companies’ ability to stockpile goods in preparation for Brexit.

Fortress Investment Group, owned by Japan’s tech giant SoftBank, has emerged as the frontrunner to buy Majestic Wine’s 200 stores in a deal worth £100m, reports The Telegraph. Fortress has been courting former Tesco director Dan Jago with a view to appointing him chief executive if the sale goes through. Elliott and OpCapita are other potential suitors. The Telegraph asks why would Elliott bet on a sector that most have been avoiding like the plague. Sky News points out that Fortress is not in formal exclusivity but sources said it was the leading bidder.

Tory leadership candidate Boris Johnson will today promise to review “sin stealth taxes”, including the one on sugary drinks should he become prime minister (Financial Times £) . BoJo will say people should be encouraged to do more exercise instead rather than “clobber those who can least afford it”. He will be at odds with health secretary Matt Hancock who plans to extend the soft-drinks levy to cover “sugary milk drinks” and “end the sale of energy drinks to children under the age of 16”. Leadership rival Jeremy Hunt is almost certain to oppose Johnson’s review, says Sky News.  Reuters notes that last month, an independent panel advising the World Health Organisation (WHO) stopped short of recommending taxing sugary drinks after failing to reach a consensus.

Pirc has called for Sainsbury’s investors to block chief executive Mike Coupe’s pay package and oppose the election of chairman Martin Scicluna ahead of the supermarket group’s annual meeting tomorrow. The advice firm said Coupe’s pay was excessive and did no align with the results achieved for shareholders. Coupe scooped £3.9m last year - £300,000 more than the previous year (The Daily Mail).

Anheuser-Busch InBev is looking to raise up to $9.8bn from listing a minority stake in its Asian business (Financial Times £). It would be the world’s biggest initial public offering this year. The move would help the brewing giant reduce its debt and it could pave the way for acquisitions in the region. Lex in the Financial Times (£) says the Asian unit may be able to buy growth where the parent cannot afford to. After the financial engineering of the IPO, this deeper challenge will loom larger, Lex concludes. The Times (£) says shares in AB Inbev rose 2.5% to close at $90.65 in New York last night.

Nestlé has found a way to wrap confectionery bars in recyclable paper in what it has claimed is a breakthrough in the fight against plastic waste (Financial Times £). It said it would start selling Yes fruit and nut bars for Europe in paper after developing a method to use that material at the high speeds necessary for packaging a mass consumer product (Bloomberg).

Australia’s Woolworths Group plans to spin off its drinks and gambling business in favour of sharpening its focus on its cored food business (Financial Times £). The company said in a stock exchange announcement on Wednesday the merger of Endeavour Drinks and ALH, Woolworths’ hospitality division, would create a business with annual sales of about A$10bn and earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation of about A$1bn a year.

Yo! Sushi restaurant chain has announced a merger with US business Snowfox in a move which could beef up Yo!’s sale of sushi in supermarkets. It started a trial selling sushi in some Tesco stores last October and it plans to expand this to other Tescos this August (Financial Times £), The combined group will have an enterprise value of about $400m and combined annual sales of $425m. The Daily Telegraph says Yo! bought a majority stake in SnowFox, the third largest sushi kiosk business in the US for about £317m.

Use of palm oil in biodiesel for cars and trucks and for heating and electricity have hit an all-time high in Europe, reports the Financial Times (£). Oilworld, which provides data on vegetable oils, says it accounts for 65% of all consumption.

Brigid Simmonds, chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association for the past 10 years, will move to new pastures this October when she becomes chairwoman of a new association – the Betting and Gaming Council, which will focus on gaming industry standards and safer gambling (The Times £).

Amazon will create 2,000 UK jobs this year in a recruitment drive that could take its British workforce to almost 30,000 (The Daily Mail), (Bloomberg). Reuters says the roles include entry-level positions at warehouses as well as engineers, software developers, data scientists, and cloud and machine learning experts.

Scotch whisky is among the products the US could target for a possible range of new tariffs on imported goods from the EU. Whiskey from Ireland, cheeses including Parmesan and Gouda, pasta and olives are also affected, says the (BBC). Sky News says US president Donald Trump has escalated a threatened trade fight with the EU over aircraft subsidies.

British shop prices fell in early June for the first time since October last year, according to the latest snapshot from the British Retail Consortium and Nielsen. Shop prices fell by 0.1% in annual terms, pushed down by non-food prices, compared with a 0.8% increase in May (Reuters).

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