Fine food distributor RH Amar has been appointed by The Artful Baker to grow the biscuit brand’s presence across the UK wholesale, speciality, independent, Cash & Carry, impulse and ecommerce channels.
Based in Christchurch, Dorset, The Artful Baker produces a range of sweet and savoury biscotti biscuits. The company was founded by Paul Rostand and last year became the first business to receive funding from the Batch Ventures innovation fund – a joint venture between Warburtons and independent business accelerator Mission Ventures.
RH Amar will offer a range of six newly launched savoury "Biscotti Nibbles" and sweet "Biscotti Bites" from The Artful Baker. The savoury flavours are: Fennel, Pink Peppercorn & Sea Salt; Smoked Jalapeno & Lime and Sundried Tomato, Kalamata Olives & Oregano. For the sweet-toothed the biscotti bite flavours are: Triple Belgian Chocolate; Sour Cherry & Dark Chocolate and Salted Caramel, Pecan & Roasted Hazelnut.
"We’re delighted to be adding The Artful Baker to our portfolio of brands," said Justin Burbage, Commercial Director at RH Amar. "With great taste and quality at its heart, we are confident of the opportunities for growth and look forward to working together to deliver distribution and grow the profile of The Artful Baker brand in the market."
Paul Rostand, founder and CEO of The Artful Baker said: "With increased investment into The Artful Baker, now is the right time to grow our brand into new channels. Working with RH Amar’s channel expertise and reach we hope to take The Artful Baker into even more UK homes."
The Artful Baker joins RH Amar’s growing portfolio of over 50 ambient food brands, which includes Crespo, Del Monte, Kikkoman, and Mutti alongside RH Amar-owned brands Cooks&Co, Camp Coffee, Mary Berry’s and The Original Waffle Co.
Oreo biscuits and a Toblerone Swiss milk chocolate are seen displayed in front of Mondelez International logo in this illustration picture taken July 26, 2021.
Cadbury-parent Mondelez International is exploring the acquisition of chocolate maker Hershey, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter, in what would create one of the world's largest confectioners.
Shares of Hershey, which has a market capitalisation of about $35 billion (£27.45bn), rose as much as 19 per cent to $208.03, while those of Mondelez were down about 4 per cent in morning trading.
Mondelez, which is valued at around $84 billion, has made a preliminary approach about a possible combination, Bloomberg reported, adding that deliberations were in the early stages and there was no certainty that discussions would lead to a deal.
Both Mondelez and Hershey declined to comment.
The Hershey Trust Company, a charitable trust that has as its sole beneficiary the Milton Hershey School, maintains voting control over The Hershey Company and its approval is key in any deal.
This is not the first time that Mondelez has tried buying Hershey.
In 2016, the maker of Oreo cookies and Cadbury chocolates abandoned the pursuit of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups owner after the latter rejected a $23 billion takeover bid.
At the time, Reuters had reported that Hershey would not be willing to enter into deal negotiations for an offer of less than $125 per share.
Chocolate companies as well as packaged food firms have been under pressure from rising input costs, especially cocoa prices, forcing firms to raise prices, which have in turn led to weakening demand.
The Hershey Company chocolate factory in downtown Hershey, Pennsylvania, USPhoto: iStock
Last month, Hershey trimmed its annual revenue and profit forecasts after its quarterly revenue dipped to nearly $3 billion due to weak demand. In contrast, Mondelez reported a near 2 per cent rise in sales to $9.2 billion in the latest quarter.
The stalling growth at packaged food companies after years of price hikes has created opportunities for deal-making.
Earlier this year, family-owned candy giant Mars said it would buy Cheez-It maker Kellanova in a nearly $36 billion deal, bringing together brands from M&M's and Snickers to Pringles and Pop-Tarts in what was at the time the year's biggest deal to date.
"We are likely to see more of these types of announcements as executives become more confident that a Trump administration won't pull the rug out from underneath tie-ups," said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House is expected to fuel a dealmaking revival. Bankers have said that Trump is likely to wave more deals through that were blocked under the previous administration over competition or US strategic importance concerns.
A potential deal with Hershey will also give Chicago-based Mondelez a stronger presence in the chocolate market in the US, the world's biggest consumer of the cocoa-based confection. Mondelez's chocolate brands, Cadbury and Milka, are top sellers in Europe.
Hershey had the biggest chunk of the US chocolate market in 2022, with nearly 36 per cent share, according to a report from data firm Statista, followed by Mars, which had a near 30 per cent share of the US market.
Mondelez's forward earnings multiple for the next 12 months, a benchmark for valuing stocks, was 18.40, compared with 21.61 for Hershey, according to LSEG data.
Two serving postmasters, Brian Smith and Sara Barlow, have been elected to the Post Office board as non-executive directors.
This is the second time in the Post Office’s 360-year history that serving postmasters have been elected to the board. Smith and Barlow will replace Elliot Jacobs and Saf Ismail who were first elected to sit on the board in 2021.
The appointment of Smith and Barlow follows approval from business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds. It comes after the Post Office chair Nigel Railton set out an ambitious five-year Transformation Plan for the Post Office to deliver a ‘New Deal for Postmasters’.
Brian Smith is the postmaster for Clocktower Post Office on the Shetland Islands. He has run the branch for 19 years. He said: “I am eager to bring my unique insights, diverse skills, and unwavering commitment to the Post Office's mission to the board. My passion for community engagement, drive for innovation, and a deep understanding of the retail landscape, will all aid me to support the Post Office on its path to modernisation and continued success.”
Sara Barlow is the postmaster for Rainhill, Merseyside. She has run the branch for six years and has been awarded a British Empire Medal for services to business and the community. Barlow said: “I have been an active participant in many postmaster working groups, forums and associations. Whether it’s through Peer Support or in my role on the Wellbeing initiative team, I am driven to help support postmasters on a wide range of issues from remuneration improvements to emotional support.”
Voting to elect two new postmasters as non-executive directors to the Post Office board took place between 30 September and 16 October.
Commenting, post office minister Gareth Thomas, said: “It’s absolutely right that postmasters should play a leading role in shaping the future of the Post Office, providing invaluable experience to ensure it serves the needs of communities across the country. Brian and Sara will make excellent additions to the leadership team, helping to further bridge the gap between branches and the board.”
Railton added: “I am delighted to be welcoming Brian and Sara to the board. We have an ambitious five-year Transformation Plan for the Post Office and both will bring critical real-life experience to the role helping us deliver a ‘New Deal for Postmasters’ that will also benefit the nine million customers that visit our branches every week and who rely on the essential products and services postmasters and their teams provide.”
Following an induction and training programme, covering the corporate and legal aspects of fulfilling the duties of a non-executive director, Smith took up his position on the Board on 4 December and Barlow will take up her position on the board on 28 January 2025.
Current postmaster non-executive director Elliot Jacobs tenure on the board has been extended to bring business continuity to the board alongside Smith and Barlow. Saf Ismail has stepped down from the board.
Welsh retailers are calling on Ministers to pass a budget which is pro-business, avoids adding unwarranted costs onto business, and supports economic growth.
Speaking ahead of the budget, Trudy Davies, owner of the independent newsagents Woosnam & Davies News, pointed out that the current economic climate is incredibly challenging for small businesses and rising costs and the subsequent pressure on incomes are putting immense strain on the businesses.
Davies called on increasing this relief, saying that by doing so, the Welsh Government can recognise the invaluable contributions retailers give.
Welsh Retail Consortium (WRC) has also sent its detailed Welsh Budget recommendations paper to Ministers and MSPs in October. It contained suggestions for cutting the cost of government, delivering competitive taxes and regulation, and delivering on the Retail Action Plan.
The leading trade body has since highlighted the sheer magnitude of the decision in the UK Budget on employer’s national insurance contributions had ‘fundamentally altered the outlook’, as it would add £120 million each year to Welsh retailers’ costs. The WRC says the tax hike will have a disproportionate impact on the retail industry which employs over 120,000 people in Wales.
Speaking ahead of the Welsh Budget, the Head of the Welsh Retail Consortium, Sara Jones, said, "The economic climate remains hugely challenging for the retail industry given a backdrop of little to no growth in retail sales, nosediving footfall and greater outlays to run their business.
"The UK budget has compounded these pressures, with Wales’ retailers now facing a £120 million increase in their tax bill following the Chancellor’s announcement that employer national insurance contributions are to rise. With retailers making decisions about how and where to invest in the coming years, there will much interest in the Welsh draft budget being presented to the Senedd on Tuesday.
"In the face of these pressures, the Welsh Finance Minister has the opportunity to inject some confidence back into the economy, boosting spending and helping to foster much needed investment by businesses.
"It’s vital that the broken business rates system, which is currently holding back investment in jobs and communities across the retail industry, is addressed head on. By introducing a Retail specific discount - a 20% adjustment to retail property rates bills – the Finance Secretary could help drive investment in local high streets and communities, creating jobs and boosting consumer confidence."
Pricer, the in-store automation and communication solutions provider, has announced a collaboration with Google Cloud to accelerate retailers’ pricing automation and shelf-edge digitalisation.
The collaboration, which sees Pricer’s Plaza platform enabled by Google Cloud, will deliver greater speed, scalability and security to power in-store efficiencies and drive enhanced customer experience.
Pricer Plaza offers retailers scalable end-to-end management to run digital in-store systems on a single, unified platform via its sophisticated Software as a Service (SaaS), cloud-based system. Its secure, managed service eliminates manual updates, offering centralised control and automation across the entire store estate and across locales.
Partnering with Google Cloud, which allows retailers to build with Generative AI (Gen AI), deploy apps fast and analyse data in seconds, Pricer will now deliver enhanced speed and scale to in-store automation.
As well as automated real-time pricing and data updates, which sees Plaza deliver 19 million price updates globally every day, the combined solution leverages Google Cloud’s high-speed data processing. This ensures product information and pricing are updated rapidly, dynamically and accurately, whether that’s estate-wide or across different regions and locales.
And, in addition to Pricer Plaza’s DataLoad capabilities, which offer no-code integration to implement a new store in less than two hours, the unified store automation platform can now deploy large-format stores and hypermarkets (<50k ESL stores) overnight. This limits downtime and interference with store operations during opening hours to ensure customer experience isn’t compromised.
Google Cloud’s industry-leading security architecture is also adding even greater protection of data integrity and advanced threat detection and prevention to Pricer Plaza. This means retailers’ store systems are protected from vulnerabilities, with robust back up and data loss recovery capabilities available to be deployed should they ever be needed.
Additional security layers also benefit from Google Cloud’s extensive compliance support, which meets global privacy and security requirements, including GDPR, SOC and ISO standards.
Peter Ward, UK Country Manager at Pricer, commented, “Faced with significant rising cost pressures – from wages to rates – driving in-store operational efficiencies and labour productivity are increasingly becoming the keystones for store execution that drive performance profitably.
"Automation sits at the intersection of delivering both of these key requirements, which is why we’ve sought to deliver even more speed, scale and simplicity with our integration of Plaza on to Google Cloud.”
Retailers face further disruption to festive favorites as nearly 800 workers at Bakkavor’s Spalding plant in Lincolnshire vote for an additional three months of industrial action.
The strike, now in its third month, has already caused shortages of taramasalata, with shelves now seeing gaps in cheese and chive dips, soups, and pasta sauces.
The workers, who are members of the Unite union, are demanding better pay than the current £11.44 per hour—just 10p above the legal minimum for over-21s. With the action extending into the critical holiday season, the impact on party staples could deepen, creating challenges for both retailers and consumers preparing for Christmas celebrations.
This prolonged dispute underscores ongoing tensions in the food production sector amid rising living costs and labor demands.
The Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham, said, “Bakkavor is an incredibly wealthy company with a chief executive on a two million-plus salary. It can fully afford to pay its workers a fair pay increase.
“Our members are showing incredible courage and have remained steadfast in their campaign and will keep fighting until Bakkavor comes to its senses and makes a fair offer. In the meantime, Unite will pursue every avenue in the UK or abroad to ensure that the workers secure a decent deal.”
The ongoing industrial action at Bakkavor’s Spalding plant is impacting supermarket shelves, with dips, soups, and sauces reported to be in lower-than-usual supply ahead of the festive season.
While the company has relocated production of taramasalata to another site to restore availability, some products remain affected, including low-fat cheese and chive dip, which has reportedly ceased production entirely.
The Guardian reports that Tesco faces reduced supplies of cheddar cheese and chive dip, reduced-fat sour cream, and other premium range items like whipped feta with mint, carbonara sauce, and chicken and vegetable soup.
Marks & Spencer is short of one item in its popular "picky tea" range—the reduced-fat sour cream and chive dip. Meanwhile, Waitrose reports shortages of taramasalata, four cheese sauce, and beetroot and feta salad from its own-label lines.