Oatly (2)

Oatly slashed its annual revenue forecasts and revealed a plan to cut its workforce after it posted a wider than expected quarterly loss, sending shares in the group tumbling (The Financial Times £).

The New York stock market’s taste for Oatly subsided still further yesterday after the oat milk producer backed by celebrity investors including Oprah Winfrey and Jay-Z fell short of quarterly expectations and downgraded its sales guidance for the year (The Times £).

The Lex column in The Financial Times (£) says Oatly is “losing its froth”. Investors will be left with a very sour aftertaste unless Oatly gets costs under control.

Ocado is deepening its push into south-east Asia as the UK company aims to become the Tesla of grocery ecommerce technology, its chief executive has said (The Financial Times £).

The Tempus shares column in The Times (£) warns readers to ‘avoid’ Ocado and says the business has yet to prove it is a good fit. “With no solid guidance on generating a statutory profit in sight, scepticism towards Ocado is warranted.”

The cost of branded foods such as Heinz tomato ketchup and Anchor butter has risen much faster than non-branded goods in the past two years, according to research published today by consumer group Which? (The Times £).

The cost of Heinz tomato ketchup in UK supermarkets has shot up 53% since 2020, making it the biggest riser in of a list of leading branded groceries (The Guardian).

Unilever is pushing up prices faster than its biggest consumer goods rivals P&G and Nestle, figures from Reuters showed (The Mail).

UK production of the snack favourites Jacob’s Cream Crackers and Twiglets is at risk after hundreds of workers went on strike at owner Pladis’s factory in Aintree, near Liverpool (The Guardian).

A British cheesemaker has sold his business to a larger rival to regain access to customers in the European Union after Brexit left him with an estimated £600,000 black hole in lost EU sales. Simon Spurrell will remain managing director of the Macclesfield-based Cheshire Cheese Company and retains a stake in the business after selling to fellow family-run north-west England producer Joseph Heler Cheese (The Guardian).

The website for Primark’s long-awaited online ordering service has crashed shortly after going live as it faced bigger than expected demand (The Guardian).

The retailer, which has been steadfast in its refusal to sell its wares online, is carrying out a trial in 25 stores across the north-west of England, Yorkshire and north Wales for children’s products only (The Financial Times £).

Brexit is the ultimate reason why the UK now faces a fresh round of austerity, a former interest rate-setter at the Bank of England has said (The Guardian).

Britain’s stock market has lost its position as Europe’s most-valued, as the economic downturn weighs on UK companies, data shows (BBC News).

Amazon is planning to cut about 10,000 jobs from its corporate workforce as part of its effort to cut loose lossmaking or underperforming units of its business, a person familiar with its plans said (The Financial Times £).

The redundancies at Amazon are set to focus on its devices business, including its Alexa voice assistant, according to The New York Times, as well as its retail and human resources units (The Times £).

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said he plans to give away most of his $124bn (£107bn) fortune during his lifetime (BBC News).

The board of Tyson Foods has launched a review of the conduct of the company’s new chief financial officer, who was charged this month with public intoxication and trespassing after a woman found him asleep in her bed (The Financial Times £).

The Financial Times (£) takes a look at the brands getting intobaby skincare.

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