Category Archives: Retail industry

UK food price rises could hit 15% over summer, report says

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Ukraine war, China lockdowns and Brexit help push up inflation, with products that rely on wheat worst hit

Food price rises in the UK could hit 15% this summer – the highest level in more than 20 years – with inflation lasting into the middle of next year, according to a report.

Meat, cereals, dairy, fruit and vegetables are likely to be the worst affected as the war in Ukraine combines with production lockdowns in China and export bans on key food stuffs such as palm oil from Indonesia and wheat from India, the grocery trade body IGD warns.

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Missguided will not refund customers, administrators confirm

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Shoppers air frustration at UK fast-fashion retailer’s failure to honour refunds after falling into insolvency

Customers of the collapsed fast fashion retailer Missguided will not receive refunds for returns, administrators of the business have confirmed.

It comes after the Manchester-based company fell into insolvency last month after racking up millions of pounds in outstanding payments to creditors.

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‘A gift from God’: Binley Mega Chippy owner basks in TikTok fame

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Kamal Gandhi, 70, and his Coventry chip shop became a sensation after its name was turned into a catchy song

It has been two weeks since his Coventry chip shop became a TikTok sensation drawing in crowds from around the country, and 70-year-old Kamal Gandhi is exhausted.

He has had to take on and train four new staff members, ensure a continuous supply of stock to deal with hundreds of new customers and help manage the long queues snaking down the road outside the now world famous Binley Mega Chippy.

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Pakistani garment workers left destitute and starving after Missguided collapse

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Fashion retailer’s suppliers in Pakistan have sacked hundreds without pay, as invoices for completed orders remain unpaid

Hundreds of garment workers in Pakistan making clothing for collapsed fast fashion brand Missguided say they have been left destitute and starving after not receiving salaries for more than four months.

The workers, who typically earn between £100 and £160 a month, say that despite not being paid they have continued working even as the Manchester-based retailer went into administration, with suppliers claiming the company owes them millions of pounds for clothing already completed and shipped.

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Reliance Industries and Apollo Global Management in £5bn bid for Boots

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Mukesh Ambani teams up with US private equity fund, with Walgreens expected to retain minority stake

The Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries has teamed up with the US private equity fund Apollo Global Management to make a £5bn bid for the UK’s Boots chain.

The US group Walgreens, which has controlled the pharmacy and beauty retailer since 2012, is expected to keep a minority stake under the deal.

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Klarna criticised for chaotic handling of job cuts

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UK employees said they were ‘blindsided’ by the Swedish firm’s announcement

Sacked staff have criticised the buy now pay later firm Klarna for its chaotic handling of job cuts, including in the UK, and questioned the chief executive’s decision to publicise a list of fired staff who are now scrambling for work.

UK employees affected by the cuts told the Guardian they felt “blindsided” by the Swedish firm’s announcement last week, when its co-founder and boss Sebastian Siemiatkowski revealed it would be cutting more than 700 of its 7,000-plus global staff, including some hired just weeks earlier.

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JD Sports boss Peter Cowgill quits with immediate effect

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Outspoken leader thought to have resisted board’s attempts to split the roles of chair and chief executive

The boss of JD Sports has stepped down with immediate effect just months after the retailer was fined more than £4m for breaching the competition regulator’s rules with clandestine meetings with a takeover target.

The company said Peter Cowgill, the outspoken chair and chief executive officer of JD, who has led the group since 2004, would be temporarily replaced as chief executive by Kath Smith, its senior independent director who spent 25 years as managing director of the Adidas and Reebok brands.

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More than a fifth of Britons struggling as grocery price inflation hits 13-year high

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Nine in 10 people say they are worried about the rising price of their shop, Kantar survey finds

More than a fifth of households in Great Britain say they are struggling to make ends meet as the price of the weekly grocery shop rises 7%, the highest level of inflation in 13 years.

Nine in 10 people say they are worried about the rising price of groceries, according to the market research group Kantar, putting the issue in second place behind concerns about energy bills as the cost of living crisis hits families hard.

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Trader Joe’s workers push to unionize amid wave of organizing efforts

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Branch in Hadley, Massachusetts, would be the first unionized store out of more than 530 locations in the US

Organizers have begun a unionization campaign at the upscale supermarket chain Trader Joe’s after workers at a branch in Hadley, Massachusetts, announced they were forming a union and intend to file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election.

It would be the first unionized Trader Joe’s store out of more than 530 locations in the US. Workers are organizing independently, citing the similar framework of the Amazon Labor Union, which is not affiliated with traditional, established labor unions.

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Pay gap in UK between bosses and workers likely to widen in 2022

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After narrowing during pandemic, analysis suggests FTSE 350 CEOs will collect 63 times average median pay at their companies

The gap between the pay of bosses and employees will widen again this year after narrowing during the pandemic, research suggests.

FTSE 350 chief executives are expected to collect 63 times the average median pay of workers at their companies , according to the High Pay Centre thinktank, which campaigns for fairer pay structures.

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M&S chair attacks ‘pointless’ post-Brexit rules for Northern Ireland

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Archie Norman backs UK plans to scrap parts of protocol, saying lorries require ‘700 pages of documents’

The chairman of Marks & Spencer has backed government plans to override parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, saying that some food exported south of the border now requires 700 pages of customs documents, partly written in Latin.

Archie Norman, a former Conservative MP, called on the UK government and EU to come to an agreement, saying the rules for sending food between them were “highly bureaucratic and pretty pointless” given that British food standards were in line with or higher than those of Brussels.

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UK preparing for Queen’s platinum jubilee with thousands of events

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Celebrations to be spread out across country during extended bank holiday weekend but royal family urge more to get involved

The UK is preparing to celebrate the platinum jubilee weekend in style, with 1,458 public events and 1,775 street parties or private events officially registered to take place from 2 to 5 June.

The celebrations are spread out across the country, with 240 in and around London, 208 around Manchester, 133 near Birmingham, 98 in Scotland – including four in the Orkneys and one on the Isle of Lewis – 21 in Northern Ireland and two in Guernsey.

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John Lewis boss calls for Covid-style cost of living aid package

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Dame Sharon White follows Tesco chief in urging UK government to help with rising energy and grocery bills

The boss of John Lewis has urged the governmentto intervene with a financial package of support to protect families from the cost of living crisis on the same scale as it did to help the nation deal with the Covid pandemic.

Dame Sharon White, a former second permanent secretary at the Treasury, said the government needed to act urgently as families struggle to pay utility and food costs as energy bills and inflation soars.

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Boohoo likely to raise prices after pre-tax profits fall 94%

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Fast fashion retailer blames delivery disruption and wavering pandemic demand for increasing costs

Boohoo has admitted its clothing prices are likely to rise this year after profits almost halved amid weakening consumer demand and rising costs.

The online fashion specialist said pre-tax profits fell 94% to £7.8m in the year to 28 February. Sales rose 14% to almost £2bn but growth was down more than 40% in the previous year, as deliveries overseas were held up by disruption to international shipping and wavering demand during the pandemic.

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Rising feed prices mean chicken could soon cost as much as beef, says Co-op

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Price of UK’s most popular meat is rising faster than any other protein, according to retailer’s boss

Chicken’s relative affordability has helped make it the country’s meat of choice but one of the UK’s biggest food retailers has warned it could soon be as pricey as beef as production costs soar.

Steve Murrells, chief executive of the Co-op, said that feed costs had become a huge challenge for the poultry industry. “Chicken could become as expensive as beef. Chicken, which was incredibly cheap and great value for money, is rising quicker than any other protein.”

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Why are UK supermarkets rationing cooking oil?

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Tesco, Morrisons and Waitrose have limited sales after concerns over shortages caused by Ukraine war

The latest supermarket data from Kantar shows shoppers have been stockpiling cooking oil due to concerns about the shortage of sunflower oil caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.

Here we look at what’s behind the shortages, what the situation means for consumers and how long it might last.

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Shelf shock: soaring supermarket prices shoppers find hard to swallow

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From dog food to coffee, readers are reporting some basic goods’ prices are rising by far more than inflation

Inflation is rampant, and supermarket prices are no exception. Shoppers are returning to stores to find old favourites have leapt in price from one week to the next. The cost of consumer goods is spiralling at such a rate that retail analysts have coined a new term, shelf shock.

Nestlé, the owner of KitKat, Häagen-Dazs and Felix cat food, became the latest consumer goods group to warn of more pain to come on Thursday, saying it had raised prices by 5.2% in the first three months of this year and that rising production costs would force another increase soon.

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UK consumer confidence even lower than in 2008 financial crisis

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Slowdown in retail sector feared as public gripped by pessimism about the economy as well as personal finances

Fears that Britain is heading for a marked slowdown in consumer spending have intensified as it emerged that the public is gloomier about the economy than when banks were on the brink of collapse during the financial crisis of 2008.

A combination of rocketing energy prices, higher taxes and a surge in the annual inflation rate to its highest level in three decades meant confidence was in freefall, according to the latest monthly snapshot of sentiment.

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Co-op to ditch use-by dates on its yoghurt to cut waste

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UK consumers urged to use their judgment rather than chuck away products that are safe to eat

The Co-op is removing use-by dates from its own-brand yoghurt in an attempt to address the problem of millions of pots that are still safe to eat being wasted each year.

Instead, starting next month, the Co-op’s own yoghurts will carry a best-before date, with shoppers encouraged to “use their judgment” to gauge if they are edible. About 42,000 tonnes of yoghurt – £100m worth – is thrown away in British homes each year because it is out of date, according to the food waste charity Wrap. Half are dumped in unopened packs.

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THG rejects ‘unacceptable’ takeover approaches as revenues jump by 35%

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Online shopping group says it has dismissed ‘multiple’ attempts to buy company

Online shopping group THG has dismissed “numerous” takeover approaches as “unacceptable”, saying they undervalued the company.

Manchester-based THG (formerly known as The Hut Group), which runs beauty and nutrition websites including Lookfantastic, Cult Beauty and Myprotein, confirmed there had been interest from third parties, but said the company was not currently involved in any talks.

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