The main story in the UK media this morning is The FT’s revelation that the government is planning new legislation that will override key parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, risking the collapse of trade negotiations with Brussels. The paper says that sections of the internal market bill — due to be published this Wednesday — are expected to “eliminate the legal force of parts of the withdrawal agreement” in areas including state aid and Northern Ireland customs. (The Financial Times £)

Meanwhile, businesses trading with the EU are demanding an urgent meeting with government ministers over concerns there are significant gaps in the UK’s Brexit border preparations. (The Guardian)

D-Day looms for Asda takeover bids, writes The Telegraph. The future of the supermarket could be decided this week as private equity firms have until Monday to make takeover offers for the Walmart-owned chain. (The Telegraph)

The veteran founder of Iceland, the frozen food chain, has bagged what may be the ultimate supermarket discount deal: a £50m buyout which comes with millions of pounds slashed from the purchase price. Malcolm Walker has reportedly agreed with Brait, the South African conglomerate, to pay the remaining two instalments of a £115m fee ahead of schedule. (Sky News)

Supermarket giant Morrisons is poised to slash the price of hundreds of products as the industry braces for a major price war this autumn. The chain is cutting prices by an average of 23% on 400 products, including fruit and vegetables, meat, poultry, bread, breakfast cereal, rice, toilet rolls and cleaning products. (The Daily Mail)

Pret a Manger chief executive Pano Christou says Pret cannot simply wait for offices to fill up again: the company has to change – not its customers. He reveals Pret has ditched its corporate mantra of ‘Follow the Skyscraper’ – and replaced it with a new one: ‘Follow the Customer.’ (The Daily Mail) The boss of Pret a Manger has said he sees a long-term shift to home working as the coffee and sandwich chain prepares for life with fewer people in city centres (The Telegraph).

It’s the multibillion-pound industry that kept on growing, based on a bean that Britons couldn’t seem to get enough of: coffee. Until, that is, the pandemic struck. As is the case with many businesses hit hard by coronavirus, the ubiquitous coffee chains that have powered city centres and high streets across the UK are in deep trouble. (The Guardian)

The scale of the downturn hitting the coffee industry is reflected in figures from the countries with the biggest markets. The world’s biggest cafe market, the US, expects sales at specialist tea and coffee shops fall nearly 11% in 2020 after years of strong growth, according to Euromonitor International. (The Guardian)

Consumers are being asked to rifle through their bins in order to weigh and record their daily food waste, in an ambitious trial that aims to reduce the 6.6m-tonne mountain of food thrown away by UK households every year. Tesco, has linked up with the environmental charity Hubbub to run the six-week experiment. (The Guardian)

The Times talks to Lidl’s UK MD Christian Härtnagel, who maintains that the discount market is still likely to grow more rapidly than other sectors, Lidl is missing out on the boom in web sales. Yet he is adamant that Lidl will not be selling groceries online any time soon. (The Times £)

Amazon has deleted approximately 20,000 product reviews, written by seven of its top 10 UK reviewers, following a Financial Times investigation into suspicious activity. The FT found evidence the users were profiting from posting thousands of five-star ratings. (The Financial Times £)

Amazon’s EU chief to step down weeks after UK boss exits. Xavier Garambois will be leaving Amazon at the end of the year, the company said. (The Telegraph)

John Lewis is considering plans to open a Waitrose foodhall in its 143-year-old Peter Jones store on the King’s Road – potentially turning the entire ground floor into a supermarket. (The Daily Mail)

The Sunday Times looks at the share price of new FTSE 100 entrant B&M European Value Retail, writing: “B&M is hoping that the new customers it attracted during lockdown will keep coming back. Its performance last Christmas disappointed the market. Next year, it will lose the Covid-19 business rates relief — worth about £80m. B&M might sell bargains but the shares are not cheap.” (The Times £)

“I’ve no beef with meat-eaters, but a plant-based diet is the way forward”, says Marco Bertacca, the new head of Quorn in The Times. “Covid has touched people so broadly, so universally, I don’t think that we can go back,” Bertacca says. “Veganism is not a movement, it’s a need. We have to do it because the problem is too big.” (The Times £).

The Guardian looks at the online offers of UK supermarket – using data from The Grocer 33 – to see what’s on offer and who does it best. (The Guardian)

Unstaffed, digital supermarkets transform rural Sweden. The Lifvs start-up has opened 19 stores across the country, choosing remote places that have lost their local shops. (The Guardian)

Hollywood actors and A-list stars battle for shot at developing next big drinks brand, writes The FT. In the high-end tequila market alone household names including George Clooney, Michael Jordan, Justin Timberlake, rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs and actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson are battling it out for market share. (The Financial Times £)

Publicans are demanding the urgent reopening of bars across Ireland, which is now the only country in the EU imposing their closure for health reasons. (Sky News)

France has moved to reverse a ban on a class of pesticides only weeks after it came into force, reigniting a bitter dispute between environmentalists and farmers and embarrassing politicians who have championed ecological causes under President Emmanuel Macron. (The Financial Times £)

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