All Daily Bread articles – Page 135

  • Comment & Opinion

    Best food forward

    2011-04-18T00:00:00Z

    Aptly for a government so concerned about waste, the coalition has been doing a bit of recycling over the weekend. It now wants to get rid of ‘best before’ labels, reasoning that people really do chuck away stuff that’s fine to eat because of the date on the wrapper.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Wine and reason

    2011-04-14T00:00:00Z

    At the start of the year Constellation threw up its hands in despair at the UK’s habit of buying whatever wine is on promotion, selling its UK business to Aussie private equity group Champ at an appropriately hefty discount.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Indiana Bond and the Temple of Doom

    2011-04-12T00:00:00Z

    Last week Andy Bond warned that the recession hadn’t yet hit home for retailers. Speaking at the Retail London conference, the former Asda boss said “an extended period of constrained consumption” was looming, resulting in a “long, long-term trend of trading down”.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Coke's hero to Zero

    2011-04-06T00:00:00Z

    Tomorrow morning Wayne Rooney finds out whether he’ll cop a suspension from the FA for his potty-mouthed outburst down the Sky Sports cameras. While he’s sure to start against Chelsea tonight, Rooney certainly won’t be pulling on the hallowed red and white colours of Coca-Cola any time soon.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Competitive instincts

    2011-04-05T00:00:00Z

    New figures from the BRC today had food inflation falling – down from 4.5% in February to a still considerable 4% last month. With salaries rising at nothing like that rate, no wonder there’s been a squeeze on consumer spending – as reflected in recent results from the likes of ...

  • Comment & Opinion

    Was it Alworth the effort?

    2011-04-04T00:00:00Z

    From the ashes it rose – a gleaming purple-fascia’d phoenix that soared briefly, yet gloriously, across the retail sky. And back to ashes it has returned, with a sickening thump, to be tilled into the earth as food for the worms.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Mars's barmy army

    2011-03-31T00:00:00Z

    It’s the nature of rankings like Britain’s 100 Biggest Brands that there are winners and there are losers. Or, to put it more generously, those that won less than others.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Feeling co-operative?

    2011-03-30T00:00:00Z

    Today The Co-op unveiled some pretty dismal like-for-like numbers for food sales, down 2.5% on last year. That wasn’t a huge surprise coming off the back of a disappointing Christmas.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Nice weather for ducks

    2011-03-29T00:00:00Z

    After last week’s gloomy news from the high street and a Budget that gave little cause for optimism to voters in our current weekly poll, today brought a raft of further statistical evidence proving what we already knew.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Buried alive

    2011-03-24T00:00:00Z

    'Sainsburied’ screams the headline in today’s edition of The Sun. It’s a nice line. Just as pleasingly, though less dramatically, the Financial Times notes that ‘Good shares cost less at Sainsbury’s’.

  • Comment & Opinion

    The Irish example

    2011-03-23T00:00:00Z

    These days Ireland’s economy resembles not so much the Celtic tiger of yore as a rather mangy tabby that’s gone through the spin cycle one too many times. So it’s novel for a commentator to look in that direction for an example of sound economic management.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Kronen-four?

    2011-03-15T00:00:00Z

    Today the government’s Responsibility Deal was made public, along with the names of 170 companies that have signed up to its various well-meaning pledges.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Looking after number one

    2011-03-14T00:00:00Z

    A little later on this afternoon, BBC Radio 4 will broadcast an interview with Sir Terry Leahy. Filmed in the final few weeks of his reign, the former Tesco chief will trace his path from Toxteth tearaway to retailing legend.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Dalton's web of intrigue

    2011-03-10T00:00:00Z

    Morrisons today unveiled its latest annual results, with profits up a healthy 13% and like-for-likes increasing by an altogether more modest 0.9%. More eye-catching than the underwhelming sales performance was the news that Morrisons is sensationally taking on both the US and the whole internet in one fell swoop.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Smoking guns, ticking timebombs

    2011-03-09T00:00:00Z

    Andrew Lansley today confirmed that the controversial tobacco display ban is to go ahead, dashing the genuine hopes for a reprieve still harboured by many retailers.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Children of the revolution

    2011-03-07T00:00:00Z

    Grocer Towers is often the scene of fearsome debate, as our newshounds compare leads, dissect the strategies of the companies we write about and, most commonly, row about whose turn it is to make the tea.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Time is of the Essenta

    2011-03-03T00:00:00Z

    Yesterday PayPoint claimed victory in its long-running battle to stop Camelot muscling in on its turf by offering commercial services via its tills. And there was more good news for the payment provider today, having bagged a seven-year gig to replace the Post Office dishing out welfare payments.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Terry, we hardly knew ye

    2011-03-01T00:00:00Z

    Elvis has left the building. Okay, so Sir Terry Leahy is probably few people’s idea of a rock star. But for UK grocery, his long-awaited exit represents as seismic a departure as when rock and roll died on a Las Vegas toilet in 1977.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Price wars... what are they good for?

    2011-02-28T00:00:00Z

    Too much messing about with computers, it said. No one is going to want to go shopping, come home and start faffing about with the internet to see if what they have already bought might have been cheaper elsewhere, it cried.

  • Comment & Opinion

    Agenda benders

    2011-02-23T00:00:00Z

    Last week it was meat. In the battle for hearts and minds, conflicting reports appeared in the space of a couple of days: first busting the “myths” about red meat increasing the risk of cancer, then suggesting those myths were all too real.