The Sunday Times broke the news that Tony Campbell, the man who helped Allan Leighton and Archie Norman turn around the fortunes of Asda, had been lined up to chair Sainsbury's should the Qatari-backed consortium Delta Two succeed. The appointment would reunite Campbell with Sainsbury's boss Justin King more than six years after the pair worked together at Asda, it said.

Heavy flooding across the UK has created an unlikely demand for bottled water, with supermarket shelves left bare after panic buying took hold, according to The Mirror. The paper reported that people in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, were driving up to 15 miles to stockpile water after a treatment plant in their area broke down.
 
Tesco has been forced to resubmit its planning application to convert a former Harvester pub in Hertfordshire into a convenience store after claims that data in the traffic study that accompanied the application vastly underestimated traffic congestion in the village. The Telegraph described it as the latest embarrassment for Sir Terry Leahy, who faced objections to opening a Tesco Express in his home village earlier in the year.

Asda has become Britain's first supermarket chain to tell suppliers it won't accept products unless they can guarantee their palm oil is from sustainably run plantations, The Observer reported. Asda has banned palm oil sourced from the worst-affected regions in Borneo and Sumatra and hopes to have banned all unsustainable palm oil from 500 products within the year.

The FT questioned drinks maker Diageo's positioning after falling Guinness sales in Ireland and the UK this year dented its beer profits. The paper said that Diageo had to make tough decisions about what kind of drinks company it wanted to be - whether it should get bigger in beer or leave the category.