Wilko’s demise looks set to take the number of jobs lost in British high street collapses to more than 100,000 since 2020. (Daily Mail)

Thousands more Wilko staff will lose their jobs this week as another 124 stores close. (Daily Mail)

Members of Wilko’s pension scheme face a cut to their savings after the collapsed retailer’s defined benefit scheme fell into the Pension Protection Fund. (The Times £)

Why couldn’t Wilko — a well-known high street name in a sector which is thriving during a cost of living crisis — be saved? Those involved with negotiations over Wilko’s future said the chain ultimately required too much investment to be revived while other complexities made it hard to divide the store estate into chunks under the Wilko brand. (Financial Times £)

James Timpson in The Times writes: “The demise of Wilko was the result of the wrong strategy and poor leadership; it should not be seen as a sign that our high streets are doomed. It shows the market is working and Wilko was outgunned by competitors.” (The Times £)

Customer loyalty schemes at Sainsbury’s and Tesco are “not all they’re cracked up to be” with regular prices being inflated so promotions look better than they really are, according to consumer champion Which? (Sky News)

Drinks are on Ellie Goulding this weekend after booze giant Heineken UK has acquired a “significant minority stake” in Served, a cocktails-in-a-can business co-owned by the pop star (The Times £). Heineken has snapped up a minority stake in Ellie Goulding’s cocktail-in-a-can brand (Daily Mail).

More than a third of Britons have cut back on their subscriptions as the cost of living crisis bites, research shows. The waning interest will put further pressure on the business models of pandemic-era stars such as food and drink delivery companies. (The Times £)

Gousto, the recipe-box delivery service, has cut 29 per cent of its 1,750 workforce after a £158m loss in 2022 — but is forecasting record profits this year. (The Times £)

Marks & Spencer has replaced plastic bags for life with paper carrier bags in an attempt to reduce its impact on the environment (The Guardian). The retailer has become the latest chain to opt for the more environmentally friendly bags following Morrisons, Waitrose and Aldi (Sky News).

The EU has ignored pleas from Poland and ended a partial ban on grain imports from Ukraine, asking Kyiv instead to voluntarily prevent surges of produce into neighbouring countries. (Financial Times £)

John Lewis has missed its profits targets. Staff bonuses are likely to be scrapped once again. And the turnaround plan has been pushed back by another couple of years. The news just keeps getting worse and worse at the company that used to be the UK’s favourite retailer, and the position of its chairman, Dame Sharon White, is looking less tenable all the time. (Telegraph)

Two pubs a day have disappeared in England and Wales in the first half of the year, according to government statistics. (BBC)

The salmon industry says fish health and welfare are at the heart of successful Scottish salmon farming, but a new investigation by Viva!, the vegan campaigning charity, highlights the parasites and jellyfish blighting intensive fish production. (The Guardian)

Primark, the discount clothing retailer, and sugar are set for a boost in 2024. Associated British Foods raised its full-year profit guidance on the back of price rises, and reiterated its expectation that retail and sugar profitability will significantly improve in 2024. (Financial Times £)

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