UK restaurant insolvencies have jumped 64% from 856 in 2020/21 to 1,406 in the past year as rising inflation and labour shortages drive restaurants out of business.
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Following months of lobbying from the trade, the government yesterday (July 20) delayed its alcohol duty review till the Autumn.
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Mounting pressure is being placed on the government to ease the ‘financial fragility’ of the hospitality sector during its upcoming review of business rates, as businesses continue to suffer rising supply chain costs and runaway inflation.
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Lebanese winery IXSIR has called on exporters to help boost sales of its products abroad, as the country continues to fight ongoing crippling inflation and energy shortages.
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According to real estate consultancy Altus Group, the number of pubs in England and Wales is now at its lowest point on record, down by more than 7,000 in the last decade.
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A new taxpayer-funded ad campaign will ask businesses to cut prices to help with the cost-of-living crisis from July.
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Despite inflation galloping away and the cost-of-living crisis biting – not to mention shipping issues and related costs – recent pandemic-boosted trends suggest that consumers have become more adventurous and premium in their wine-buying habits.
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Data from CGA has revealed a third month of double-digit inflation for foodservice prices in April, with further rises expected and inflation unlikely to fall below 7% until at least next year.
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A £15bn package aimed at helping households deal with inflation and the rising cost of energy bills comes just one day after the Sue Gray report was published – a move that has prompted critics to question the rationale and timing of the sudden windfall for British consumers. Also, they ask, where is the support for business?
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Hospitality’s recovery from Covid remains “fragile”, new data has shown, as solid growth for Britain’s managed restaurant, pub and bar groups in March was dampened by high inflation.
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In a sector facing soaring costs and plummeting consumer confidence, today’s increase in VAT gives operators a tough decision to make on price rises.
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Britain’s managed restaurant, pub and bar groups raised sales above pre-pandemic levels in February, thanks mainly to the removal of Covid-19 restrictions. Still, high inflation continues to make real-terms growth challenging.
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Shoppers are returning to stores to make regular, smaller purchases and a divide is beginning to emerge among online grocery shoppers, new grocery data has revealed.
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The success of the government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme in August helped push the UK inflation rate to a five-year low, according to data from the ONS.
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Investing in Britain’s future was one of the anthems that ran through Philip Hammond’s autumn Budget speech this afternoon.
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In the last week of August there was more than a little flurry of activity for the emerging markets trading sector of Wall Street as the Argentinian peso collapsed yet again. Those in the UK and global wine trade tuned in to assess how this might affect the price and positioning of Argentina and its punter-pulling flagship Malbec.
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Every year at the end of my tour of Argentina, I sit down with Dr Nicolas Catena of Bodega Catena Zapata. He wants to talk about wine – new bodegas and regions, the latest vintage – while I want to talk about economics, his speciality. Before he became one of the leading figures in the Argentinian wine industry, Catena was a top academic and is still enormously perceptive.
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Duty on wines, spirits and beers is to be frozen, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced in today’s budget, allaying trade fears of another rise in line with inflation.
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Ian Dury and the Blockheads released Reasons To Be Cheerful in July 1979, two months after Margaret Thatcher became the UK’s first female Prime Minister.
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Retail sales slowed in May to the lowest annual growth since April 2013 as shoppers begin to feel the impact of price inflation, according to the late Retail Sales bulletin from the Office for National Statistics.
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