Not all fluff: UK’s largest laundry service snaps up rival April 25, 2022 The UK’s largest on-demand laundry and dry-cleaning service Laundryheap has snapped up its rival to become a clothes-cleaning-behemoth.Laundryheap, founded in 2014, has bought Laundrapp from Inc Retail for an undisclosed sum. The London-based company, which partners with Holiday Inn, Premier Inn, Best Western and Just Eat, operates in 10 markets outside of the UK, including [...]
Brits already cutting spending amid cost of living squeeze April 22, 2022 Predictions that the historic cost of living crunch will trigger a sharp pull back in spending look nailed on come through, two surveys suggest. Around one in three households have already cut spending just four months into the year, consultancy KPMG said today. Brits are forgoing discretionary purchases in response to greater pressure on their [...]
Gaucho and M boss: Eat out with a clear conscience – or just eat at home April 21, 2022 THE owner of working lunch institutions Gaucho and M has said he’d rather eat at home if he can’t eat out with a clear conscience.Martin Williams, the restaurateur behind Rare Restaurants, told City A.M. yesterday that he would only be serving carbon-neutral beef from now on as consumers demand more from where they’re eating. “Our [...]
Foals: We’re changing the macho image of hot sauce April 21, 2022 There’s a video on YouTube entitled “Colin Farrell searches for meaning in the pain of spicy wings.” In it, the ageing hunk dollops hot sauce on chicken, eats it, then squirms in pain. The 28-minute video has racked up over 3m views in a little over a month. Halfway through, host Sean Evans boasts that [...]
Time to talk about the price of milk: artisan cheese could save our dairy industry April 21, 2022 Milk has always held a curious place in the political psyche. It has long been used as a measure of affordability of everyday goods – and our leaders’ understanding of the challenges facing many Britons. As inflation, pressures on transport and the war in Ukraine have triggered a spike in prices, the price of milk [...]
Just Eat slashes profit guidance for year and mulls sale of Grubhub April 20, 2022 Just Eat has said it has lowered its profit guidance for the year and is mulling the sale of its US arm Grubhub. The delivery service said that “management is currently, together with its advisers, actively exploring the introduction of a strategic partner into and/or the partial or full sale of Grubhub.” “There can be [...]
The City View: Michael Hewson on Germany’s Russian energy oversights and Merkel’s legacy April 19, 2022 Today Andy Silvester talks to Michael Hewson, Chief Markets Analyst at CMC Markets. They go through the latest IMF forecasts, which included downgrades and the worst growth forecast in the G7 for the UK; Germany’s exposure to energy price fluctuations, the mounting pressure to reduce its dependency on Russian oil and gas, and Angela Merkel’s [...]
Online booking agents have been behaving like kings – it’s time to topple them April 16, 2022 As the nation begins to plan summer breaks, following a tortuous two pandemic-fuelled years, a collective sigh of relief should be heard from Somerset to Stoke. But there’s little relief to be had when a broken system is driving a false market of competition. For years, the travel industry network titans have been able to [...]
Sky-high inflation forces Brits to raid pandemic savings April 13, 2022 Brits are being forced to run down their pandemic-induced savings to maintain spending amid historically steep inflation, reveals fresh figures published today. Pay is trailing behind the rate of price rises, meaning households are having to raid their war chests to maintain living standards. Over one in two Brits have already drawn from their savings [...]
The City View: Victoria Scholar on rising prices, unemployment and retail sales data; and XR cause Lloyd’s of London HQ shutdown April 12, 2022 Today Andy Silvester talks to Victoria Scholar, Head of Investment at Interactive Investor. They go through some of the week’s economics data on GDP, unemployment, retail sales, and talk trading updates. They discuss the latest from ASOS, Deliveroo, and EasyJet: ASOS is facing a raft of headwinds, as investors lose confidence in the online retailer; [...]