A lot of fizz: Warning from Face the Facts, Can the Tax group that sugar tax could fuel illicit soft drinks trade October 13, 2016 A British soft drinks industry campaign group has brought a whole new meaning to coke today after it claimed the sugar tax could fuel the illegal fizzy drinks trade. Concerns have arisen from the prospect of a minimum tax threshold for importers, which would permit some product to be imported tax free into the UK. Read more: TaxPayers' [...]
Mitchells & Butlers reports a drop in annual profits citing cost pressures and competition November 22, 2016 Pub and restaurant operator Mitchells & Butlers announced a drop in like-for-like sales as annual profits fell by more than a quarter for the year ended 24 September. The figures Like-for-like sales were down on the whole by 0.8 per cent, but the company is progressing toward growth with a rise of 0.5 per cent the last eight weeks' sales. Like-for-like food volumes [...]
JD Wetherspoon’s has taken its Brexit campaign to a new level as the company prints 200,000 beer mats May 31, 2016 Pub chain JD Wetherspoon has just upped the ante in its steadfast campaign for Britain to vote to leave the EU. Today, the pubs group announced its founder and chief executive Tim Martin has printed 200,000 beer mats calling for the UK to vote leave – taking aim at Christine Lagarde and the International Monetary [...]
Property of the Week: 14 Half Moon Street is a Victorian bachelor pad turned family mansion that’s on sale for £14m September 22, 2016 A peek inside these plush living quarters is also a glimpse into Oscar Wilde’s Mayfair, a time when bohemians and young men-about-town could afford to live in the prestigious district while they chased their fortunes. This enormous Grade II listed house was the inspiration for Algernon Moncrieff’s bachelor pad in The Importance of Being Earnest, [...]
London landlord bars the 800 campaigners that got his Duke of Hamilton pub in Hampstead listed November 12, 2015 A London landlord has barred 800 local campaigners from his pub after they managed to get his property listed, making it harder for him to sell. Steve Coxshall, a former stockbroker that also managed the boyband Blue, said the campaigners, the Hampstead Neighbourhood Forum, were “hypocrites in cardigans”. Camden Council decided to the list the three-century-old [...]
If you dream of hurtling down deserted mountains, slaloming trees and ducking overhanging branches, the Canadian Rockies may be for you January 17, 2017 Sunshine Village sounds like a misnomer for a ski resort deep in the Canadian Rockies. A Caribbean beach complex, maybe, but a ski arena that straddles the Continental divide of the Americas? But when you’re at the peak of Mount Standish, an impossibly blue sky hanging over a seemingly endless white expanse, it starts to [...]
EU referendum: JD Wetherspoon has printed new Brexit beer mats – this time they’re directed at George Osborne June 20, 2016 Clearly not content with offering just one round of Brexit beer mats, JD Wetherspoon has printed another set – and this time George Osborne is in the firing line. The pub group, led by the staunchly pro-Brexit Tim Martin, has printed 500,000 of the new beer mats for use across its 920 UK pubs ahead of [...]
Giraffe Concepts snaps up 1950s-style restaurant chain Ed’s Easy Diner in pre-packaged deal that will result in 379 redundancies October 12, 2016 Giraffe Concepts has snapped up Ed's Easy Diner in a pre-packaged sell-off of the 1950s-style restaurant chain. The purchase includes 33 of the company's 59 restaurants and will result in the immediate closure of 26 restaurants and 379 redundancies. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, also includes the Ed's Easy Diner brand and the group's head [...]
Wanted for 2017: A leader with a strong moral compass December 21, 2016 It feels like 2016 is never-ending. As I sit here writing my final column of the year I’m looking at the news: 12 killed in a lorry attack on a Berlin Christmas Market and the Russian ambassador shot dead in Turkey. In the last 12 months, the UK voted to leave the EU, Donald Trump was [...]
How one buccaneering family dominated the UK scampi market October 20, 2016 "At the tender age of 32, I got involved in buying assets from the receivership of what was the Whitby Shellfish Company”, says Graham Whittle, founder of Whitby Seafoods. From relatively humble beginnings, in just over thirty years, the business has gone from one that was sinking to the biggest producer of scampi in the UK, [...]