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Home-grown food, including the UK honey industry, could be at risk because of a decline in honeybees. The Telegraph reported that honeybees could die out within 10 years as disease spread through the nation's hives, causing "calamitous" problems. Honeybees pollinate more than 90% of the crops we rely on for food, according to the paper, and contribute more than £1bn a year to the economy.

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Retailers were preparing for a tough year after the latest set of government figures showed even the deep discounting over Christmas had failed to prevent a slide in spending. According to the FT, retail sales volumes dropped 0.4% in December with activity at Christmas far weaker than the City had been expecting.

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Retailers are backing a campaign to promote home-reared veal and young beef to end the controversial live export of bull calves from the milk production industry. Tesco said that it would phase out imported veal, M&S that it already stocked rosé veal instead of intensively farmed white veal and Waitrose that it was encouraging dairy farmers to keep calves for domestic production.

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The RSPCA has written to the British Pig Executive, the British Retail Consortium and supermarkets calling for legal standards for free-range and outdoor-reared pork, to avoid misleading consumers. The Times said 75% of the nine million pigs reared in Britain live entirely indoors.

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Iceland boss Malcolm Walker was praised by the Mail's 'Reader's Champion' Tony Hetherington for how he dealt with a complaint when a customer's wallet went missing at one of his stores. Iceland initially offered £50 in vouchers as compensation for the wallet, which had reportedly been stolen by a member of Iceland staff, even though it contained £90 in cash. After being contacted by the paper, however, Walker said he would reimburse £320 for the wallet.

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