It’s a relatively quiet morning in the papers for grocery and wider retail.

The Financial Times reports on the first-half results of Smirnoff owner Diageo but focuses on the launch of apple-flavoured Cîroc vodka in the US five weeks ago. The paper said the late launch was the main factor behind a 44% fall in overall Cîroc sales in the US in the six months to the end of December. It contributed to a 2% drop in Diageo’s US figures – its most important market. “It underscores both the importance of new products but also the change in Diageo’s supply policy of shipping fewer bottles to distributors to prevent stocks building up at retailers,” the FT writes.

The Telegraph’s Questor column said Diageo the “unlikely victim” of the slowdown in the Chinese economy. A slightly better-than-expected rise in organic revenues and volumes did just enough to appease impatient investors, but Questor was “concerned” about the impact from a collapse in the value of currencies in important growth markets such as Brazil, Mexico and across Asia.

Diageo CEO Ivan Menezes issued a warning in The Times over the implications of a UK exit from the European Union. He said it would be particularly damaging to the Scotch whisky industry. “We’re very clear that Britain in the EU is a good thing,” Menezes added. “It’s good for our business, it’s good for the Scotch whisky industry. Free trade agreements tend to be a negotiation and you’ve got more clout doing it as the EU than you would as a single country.”

The Telegraph reports on more worrying times for Britain’s dairy farmers. Official statistics showed the income of dairy farms almost halved in this tax year to an average of £46,500 as a result of plummeting wholesale milk prices.

Celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall keeps up the pressure on MPs to support a bill designed to reduce supermarket food waste (The Guardian). It comes as Labour’s shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, Kerry McCarthy, is set to take her food waste (reduction) bill for its second reading in the House of Commons today.

Finally, discount greetings cards retailer Card Factory has chopped the handles off thousands of its carrier bags as a way to sidestep the government’s 5p bag tax (The Guardian).

 

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