ONS data on the UK labour market offers a combination of positive and negative signals, suggesting that the worst effects of the Coronavirus emergency on workers may be easing, but that full recovery has not yet arrived Good news: Number of employees rose slightly in January and February 2021 Redundancy rates are slowing, though they remain elevated compared with the pre-C...

Your overview of political and economic news with a focus on the food and consumer goods industry, featuring the latest developments and guidance on COVID-19 and adapting to a new relationship with the EU. EU legal action on extension of grace period for moving goods to Northern Ireland The UK government has received a legal challenge from the European Commission after temporaril...

New research from IGD reveals that variety discounters – Home Bargains, B&M, Poundland, Wilko and smaller players – will be worth £12.6bn by 2022, up from £11.1bn in 2020. The channel will take a 5.8% share of the overall UK grocery market and its growth of 6.8% per year will be over four times the pace of the overall UK food and grocery market. This growing channel has been put firmly o...

The first data from ONS shows that UK food and drink imports from the EU fell by 21% between December 2020 and January 2021, presumably due to EU Exit. The same source (ONS report Trade In Goods MRETS ) shows an even steeper decline in UK food and drink exports to the EU – down 59% month-on-month. This may be a consequence of buyers in the EU avoiding trade with the UK for fear of ad...

A high performing team has wellbeing at the heart. Learn how to support the business, whilst managing the wellbeing of your team using practical tools that underpin your leadership journey. In this webinar recording you will find out how to: Set clear expectations Hold people to account around those expectations and recognise successes Show care for your team by regularly c...

The first data for January 2021 shows that UK food and drink imports from the EU fell sharply in January 2021, when compared with preceding months and with the same month in 2020. This data should be treated with caution, since it is “provisional” only and may change. There are also some practical challenges with gathering official statistics during the Coronavirus emergency. The stee...

Your overview of political and economic news with a focus on the food and consumer goods industry, featuring the latest developments and guidance on COVID-19 and adapting to a new relationship with the EU. New timeline for introduction of import controls The government has announced more time for businesses to prepare for the introduction of import controls for goods from the EU. ...

New ONS data shows levels of credit and debit card activity at 100 major UK retail businesses, in both real-world and online channels, since the outbreak of Coronavirus. This data gives a picture of consumer activity, albeit an incomplete one – it does not cover cash transactions or smaller retailers, for example. Retailers are divided into 4 broad types (this is somewhat arbitrary): ...

More than 21m people in the UK have now received at least one dose of a Coronavirus vaccine and take-up is high in most groups that qualify for protection (source: BBC, 07 March 2021). As rollout continues, expectations of a quick return to “normal” life are rising and IGD’s ShopperVista research shows that confidence amongst grocery shoppers in February 2021 was the highest since ...

Meet Vas, Josh and Spen and hear about why they love working in the food and grocery industry!   .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } Teaching ...