Food price rises unlikely before summer, says boss of Sainsbury’s
Shoppers will not see food prices rise until at least the summer and Easter will be unaffected by conflict in the Middle East, the boss of Sainsbury’s has said, despite fears of an inflation spike.Simon Roberts said it was “too early” to say whether and when food price inflation related to higher commodity costs would hit supermarket shelves and that the UK’s second-largest supermarket had long-term agreements with suppliers to help protect shoppers.“We have a lot of the tools to make sure we’ll do everything possible to contain the impact on inflation,” he said.“Obviously we are watching and monitoring events closely.“We’re not looking at immediate consequences or near-term consequences that we don’t think we’ve got a plan to navigate.
”Farmers across the world are facing rising costs, as the closure of the strait of Hormuz affects about a third of the global seaborne trade in fertilisers.“Volatility and uncertainty for farmers has only become a bigger issue for them.They need certainty on making sure they can see what’s coming,” Roberts said.Speaking from a fruit farm in Kent, where Sainsbury’s has signed a new five-year deal with a berry producer as part of a plan to invest £5bn in longer-term contracts, Roberts added that the effects of the war were unlikely to hit food prices until the summer at the earliest as, for example, many farmers had bought fertiliser and fuel before the disruption and many businesses had hedged commodity costs.He said the impact would become clearer in three to five weeks and was helped by the British growing season getting under way, meaning food imports will be lower until the autumn.
Any impact on price would be linked to “how long this situation may or may not [continue]” and “what happens ultimately to the cost of oil”, Roberts said.“It’s not going to be in the Easter shopping basket, but I can’t say by the summer that will be the case,” he added.Roberts called on the government to ease planning restrictions to help expand UK food production in an increasingly volatile world affected by the climate crisis and geopolitical disruption.He said he believed the government wanted to ease the way for developments such as polytunnels and poultry facilities to help farmers produce more, as well as extend the harvest season.“We want to grow and produce more at home,” said Roberts, who is expected to be among retailers meeting with the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, this week to discuss the effects of the Iran conflict.
Sainsbury’s said that by the end of this year, 60% of its own-brand suppliers of fresh produce including mushrooms and carrots, dairy, meat, fish and poultry – 2,500 farms – would have agreements covering five or more years,Berry farmers are the latest group to join the scheme, with apple and pear producers expected to follow soon,Roberts said the supermarket chain had become adept at dealing with volatile trading conditions after more than five years of significant disruption, ranging from Brexit to the Covid pandemic, as well as a surge in commodity prices after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022,He said Sainsbury’s had committed to more long-term contracts after several years of supply issues on fresh produce including tomatoes caused by extreme weather in Spain,Roberts’ comments contrast with those of Allan Leighton, the chair of the struggling rival supermarket Asda, who suggested UK food price inflation was inevitable given the impact of fuel and energy costs on producers.
Food inflation eased slightly to 3.4% in March from 3.5% in February, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).Analysts at Shore Capital forecasted on Monday that it would remain as high as 3% by the end of the year.Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the BRC, said: “Higher costs resulting from the conflict in the Middle East are starting to feed into supply chains.
While retailers will work with their suppliers to mitigate the impact on prices as far as possible, inflation will rise, although there are no indications it will reach the peaks of the last spike in April 2023.”Leighton called on the government to provide short-term financial support for farmers hit by energy and fertiliser cost increases linked to the Middle East crisis.Roberts agreed, saying: “We need to pay really close attention to what’s happening now.” But he added it was important not to focus on short-term solutions and to “work in a strategic way to drive the strong food system” the country needed.He said the retailer’s cost-of-production-based longer deals guaranteed farmers a price that reacted to changes in the cost of fuel, fertiliser and animal feed.
They also meant a closer relationship between supplier and supermarket so that, for example, an unexpected drop or rise in production could be managed.“If we didn’t have these long-term partnerships in place we would be more concerned.It gives us certainty to navigate our way through,” he said.Roberts was speaking at the Kent fruit farm of Tim Chambers, who has been investing in technology such as solar power, heated polytunnels and robotic equipment to tackle pests, assess crop ripeness and carry picking crates to help improve worker efficiency.Chambers said he had been confident to make the investments – which increase the length of harvest, reduce waste and reliance on volatile commodities such as fuel and chemicals – because of his five-year deal with Sainsbury’s.
“You can’t make big investments and decisions on uncertainty,” he added.Roberts said Sainsbury’s longer-term commitments were “joining the dots up across the supply chain, giving farmers certainty and making sure investments are happening in the right place”.
Investors tell Thames Water to ‘eat humble pie’ over failed takeover and open bids
Thames Water’s bosses should eat “humble pie” over a failed takeover process last year and let other firms bid for it, according to a Hong Kong investment group angling to buy the troubled water company.CK Infrastructure (CKI), which is owned by Hong Kong’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, has already acquired Northumbrian Water and has been trying to launch a bid for Thames since February last year.Andrew Hunter, CKI’s co-managing director, told the Guardian he was “frustrated” at being shut out of the process to save the debt-laden water company, which has now been locked in talks with its own lenders since last summer. “My goodness, it’s been going on forever,” he said.Thames has been trying to stave off financial collapse for more than two years as it struggles under the weight of £17
Unilever’s food mashup is hardly a delectable prospect for shareholders
If Unilever shareholders thought the era of management-speak twaddle ended a few chief executives ago, say hello to their new partner in the food game. Brendan Foley, the boss of US spice and condiments firm McCormick, ran through the menu as he presented his big grab for Unilever’s Hellmann’s-to-Knorr-to-Marmite food division. The logic, he explained, is all about “maximal adjacency”, “actionable growth levers” and “end-to-end flavour experiences”.From the point of view of Unilever’s investors, the guff wouldn’t matter if McCormick were paying a fat price in a cash deal. But this $44
Penguin to sue OpenAI over ChatGPT version of German children’s book
Penguin Random House has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging its chatbot ChatGPT violated copyright by mimicking and reproducing the content of a popular series of German children’s books.The lawsuit, which was filed on Friday with a Munich court against OpenAI’s Ireland-based European subsidiary, states Penguin Random House’s legal team had prompted ChatGPT to write a story in the vein of Penguin author and illustrator Ingo Siegner’s Coconut the Little Dragon series.In response to the prompt “Can you write a children’s book in which Coconut the Dragon is on Mars”, the chatbot generated text and images the publishing group said were “virtually indistinguishable from the original”.As well as generating the text of a story, the AI-powered chatbot created a cover featuring Siegner’s orange dragon and two sidekicks, as well as a blurb for the back cover and instructions for how to submit the manuscript to a self-publishing platform.Coconut the Little Dragon (Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss) is one of the most popular German books for children
Landmark losses for Meta and YouTube as big tech misses the point
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor for the Guardian. I’m hoping futilely for warm spring weather in New York City, but while it’s still cold, I’m sitting inside and reading The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. Published in 2010 and a finalist for the Pulitzer prize, the book is a fascinating record of our anxieties about technology at a time when the iPhone was just three years old and Facebook was just six. Google Chrome had debuted two years prior, and I think I was using Mozilla Firefox as my main browser
Mako Vunipola to join Leicester and link up with former England teammate Parling
The former England prop Mako Vunipola has confirmed he is joining Leicester this summer as the Tigers look to beef up their pack for next season. The 35-year-old Vunipola will be joined in the East Midlands by the Argentinian front-row Joel Sclavi who will also help to fill the gap left by Nicky Smith’s impending switch to Sale Sharks.Vunipola, who won 79 England caps and was picked for three British & Irish Lions tours, is playing for Vannes in France’s ProD2 but has opted to extend his career by a year. “He was hungry for the chance to come back to the Prem and finish in the comp he knows best,” the Leicester head coach, Geoff Parling, said.“That coupled with his experience and what that can do for our young props is hopefully going to be really valuable
Dan Hurley’s ‘head-butt’ showed Black coaches aren’t given the same grace as white coaches
The UConn-Duke game on Sunday night was one for the ages. A last-second game winner from freshman Braylon Mullins took down the top-seeded Blue Devils, who at one point had led by 19 points. It is a moment that will be replayed over and over for years to come.However, something strange happened after Mullins’s shot. UConn’s head coach Dan Hurley approached referee Roger Ayers and touched foreheads with the official while glaring into his eyes
Tiger Woods says looking at his phone led to Florida rollover crash
‘Death hunted him since he was a kid’: how Lamar Odom survived to become a villain in his own tale
County Championship 2026: team-by-team guide to the new season
The Breakdown | Parling’s TV spat with Doyle symbolises the tug of war for rugby’s modern soul
Middlesex ‘drifting towards irrelevance’: Gatting leads revolt against club leadership
Sinner and Sabalenka’s Sunshine Doubles turn up heat on chasing pack