Prezzo Perks

Prezzo has announced it will give its staff a pay rise next month and close all of its restaurants on Boxing Day. The Italian-themed restaurant chain said all 2,500 staff would see their wages go up by an average of 4%. It is the latest firm to announce such a move as the sector tries to retain workers and attract new staff amid a recruitment crisis. Prezzo also said it had introduced development plans to "encourage" people to pursue careers with the company. Several other firms have made similar announcements as they attempt to retain staff and recruit new workers with better pay and perks. Last week, Asian food chain Itsu announced it was giving all in-store workers an 11% wage increase, while coffee chain Costa said it was handing out a 5% pay rise for 14,500 staff working at its company-owned stores in the UK. Retailers Ocado, Aldi and Waitrose have all increased lorry driver wages, and Tesco has offered £1,000 joining bonuses. Job vacancies have hit record highs across the country as the economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and the hospitality sector has 134,000 vacancies, with many businesses reporting that positions are hard to fill. Industry bodies say one in five workers has left the sector during the pandemic, with Brexit often blamed for making the situation worse.

Workers Perks

Milka Trademark Battle

 

A multinational confectionery company has threatened legal action against a London vegan snack maker over the colour of one of its fruit bars. Mondelez alleges that the Primary Pantry's cocoa bar "exploits" the trademark of its Milka chocolate range. Lawyers for Mondelez are demanding the use of lilac packaging for the bar must stop, warning of a £5,200 penalty each time the trademark is infringed. Nurture Brands, which owns the Primal Pantry, denies "hurting" the trademark. The snack bars were launched in 2016 in a range of colours so that "they have good differentiation on a shelf together", said Adam Draper, managing director of Nurture Brands. "We don't think it is the same colour or even in the same spectrum," Mr Draper added.The BBC understands that Mondelez has given Nurture Brands six months to change the packaging. To recall the products and remove all packaging currently in circulation could cost between £30,000 and £50,000 "without factoring in all the fines", Mr Draper estimates.  A spokeswoman for Mondelez said: "We own a colour trademark in Europe for the distinctive lilac Milka colour for food products. "As a matter of practice, to protect the values of our brands which we have worked hard to build over hundreds of years, we express our concerns to third parties when we feel they are using a protected brand element.

Trademark War

Spray Salt

 

Premier Foods is bringing an innovative format to the flavourings and seasonings category, with the introduction of two salt sprays from Saxa. Claimed to be a sector first, the new range will be available in Sea Salt and Salt & Vinegar variants. The 100ml spray bottles are said to allow shoppers to take greater control of their salt intake and offer a convenient way to season dishes. Each spritz of the solution contains 1% of an adult’s recommended daily salt intake, evenly distributed in a measured quantity over the dish to mean a little can go a long way. The company pointed to studies that show that half of shoppers in the UK are concerned about the amount of salt in their diet, with 54% actively trying to reduce it. They will be hitting shelves in early October priced at £1.99.

Spray Salt

Matfen Hall U-Turn

A luxury country hotel heavily criticised for doubling the price of booked weddings has said it will honour the original agreements. Matfen Hall in Northumberland brought in a minimum spend of £20,000, an increase of about £10,000 for many of the events. Matfen Hall was taken over last year by the Walwick Estate Group, which owns Walwick Hall near Hexham. The hotel initially said it had incurred a loss of more than £1.2m by honouring 119 weddings at prices agreed by the previous management, and that it could "no longer continue to sustain" that commitment. But a spokesman for the hotel has since said all the affected couples had now "been offered to have their weddings at the original price". In a new statement, the hotel said: "We unreservedly apologise for the hurt this decision has caused." The bad press caused by the original decision may not be easy to overcome as many couples were faced with either paying extra or finding another venue feel they can no longer trust the venue and are looking elsewhere.

Matfen Hall U-Turn

Green Pledge

Fashion firms Asos and Primark have announced new sustainability commitments, with both saying they will keep prices affordable. Asos says it is aiming to achieve a net-zero impact on the environment by 2030. Primark says its clothes will be made using recycled or "more sustainably sourced materials" by the same date. The budget retailer has also promised to halve carbon emissions across its operations. Critics warned, however, that these goals will be hard to track as fast-fashion supply chains often lack transparency.In a statement, Primark also said it would design its clothes to be more durable so they can be recycled and last longer - without increasing its prices. Over the next year, Primark said it would make all men's, women's and kids' entry price point T-shirts from sustainably sourced cotton.The global fashion industry produced an estimated 2.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2018, and uses more energy than both aviation and shipping combined. It also accounts for nearly 20% of waste water. In the UK, citizens buy more new clothes than any other European country and an estimated 350,000 tonnes of clothes end up in landfill every year.

 Green Pledge

John Lewis Plan To Save Christmas

 

John Lewis is chartering a fleet of extra ships, along with a number of other businesses, to make sure it has Christmas stock on time. Christmas is when many retailers make most of their profits, including John Lewis. And it's throwing everything at it to make sure its stock arrives on time. The pandemic has wreaked havoc for the flow of goods around the world. There's still a shortage of containers and it's also tough getting a space on the vast ships that carry them from China. Freight costs have also rocketed. And if your stock does turn up as planned, you've got to make sure you have drivers to get the goods to distribution centres and on to stores. Add in the uncertainty over Covid and no wonder retailers are even more nervous than usual about the all important festive season. John Lewis Christmas campaign in stores would be delayed by two weeks. John Lewis said it was focusing on expanding its products and offerings for the holiday season, including 10 new Christmas emporiums in John Lewis and expanding areas related to the department store within Waitrose supermarkets.

John Lewis Christmas

Pop It

Once you pop you can’t stop, it seems, with Britons increasingly hooked on fidget toys that mimic the joy of popping bubble wrap over and over again. Retailers have shifted 5m pop its or fidget poppers since stores reopened in April, confirming the toy as the biggest craze since fidget spinners swept through the playground in 2017 and one that is likely to run until Christmas. The trend has been amplified by social media sites such as TikTok, where clips of pop its have attracted billions of views. No toy brand dominates the market but the idea is said to be that of games designers Theo and Ora Coster, who are credited with nearly 200 inventions including Guess Who. However, the climate emergency means the enjoyment of popping is tempered by awareness of the potential environmental cost.  To keep its shelves full The Entertainer is bringing in 70 containers from China on a charter boat but is having to pay $19,000 a container compared with a pre-Covid rate of $1,500.

Fidget Toys

The End of Formal Workwear?

 

If you didn’t buy any new clothes during the pandemic, you’re far from alone. In the UK, clothing sales plummeted 25% in 2020, the largest annual drop since record-keeping began 23 years ago. Particularly hard hit was the business-fashion sector, as workers swapped offices for their homes, in-person meetings for Zoom – and downgraded their outfits accordingly. It’s abundantly clear that the pandemic has accelerated a long-standing discussion around whether business attire is still relevant. Post-pandemic sales in the work-fashion industry probably won’t be helped by the fact that many companies plan to embrace a hybrid future – with staff doing some days at home and some in the office. Such a transition will have implications; staff will need fewer office clothes, of course, but more importantly, it would indicate a significant shift in employer thinking.   

Office Dress Code

McPlant

 

McDonald's has said it is to start selling a vegan burger in the UK and Ireland after years of research to perfect it. The McPlant burger will be trialled in 10 Coventry restaurants from late September and go national next year. But the launch lags behind rival fast food chains, such as Greggs with its vegan sausage roll and Burger King with a soy-based Rebel Whopper. McDonald's said it took its time to ensure it met the highest standards. The fast food giant spent three years researching and testing different burgers and cheeses.While the Vegan Society estimates that there are about 600,000 vegans in Britain, research conducted by the British Nutrition Foundation and YouGov in 2020 found that 61% of UK adults surveyed were unlikely to switch to a plant-based diet. But Barclays Bank forecasts that consumption of meat alternatives might be worth $140bn (£106bn) by 2029.

McPlant