Plimsoll

If ever there was a market that has had to navigate unrelenting turbulence over the past few years it’s the UK Fresh Produce industry.

With 1 in 4 care home workers poised to leave their jobs in the next 12 months, the hiring crisis in the sector is getting worse. The problem is already starting to spill over into the public sector with hospital beds blocked by infirm patients left with nowhere to go. Amid the cost of living crisis and near full employment, workers are telling their employers they simply cannot exist on the wages on offer in the sector.

The enormity of the destruction COVID-19 has wrought across many parts of the UK economy is becoming increasingly apparent. At some point in the near future, the pandemic crisis will force all company leaders to ask, “What sort of business do we want to be?”.  

Recent history has held a mirror up to many businesses large and small and in a broad spectrum of markets. The mirror has revealed weaknesses in many business models. Paradoxically, it has also revealed unprecedented opportunities and a one-off chance to reset corporate goals.

If you’re thinking about an acquisition sometime in the future, there’s no better time than the present to start planning about your approach. The key to buying another company is to do your homework, assess every possible option and build yourself a credible shopping list. So many people don’t follow those basic principles and, ultimately, their acquisitions fail to deliver the expected returns.

With the UK being the only European country to see declining used car prices during 2022 and demand for new cars only just starting to stabilize after recent downward pressures, what next for the UK’s leading dealerships?

Considering the slew of negative business news over the past 18 months, there has been a real dearth of corporate failures hitting the headlines recently.

The news of potentially successful coronavirus vaccines has provided welcome light amid the gloom of continued lockdowns and restrictions. Announcements from Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech of candidate vaccines with efficacy above 90% have seen stock markets soar and hopes grow that, by autumn 2021, the world might see a return to a more ‘normal’ existence.

Competition will lead to lower prices for customers. Private enterprises will deliver efficient services where state monopolies once wasted more and more taxpayer’s money. Popular capitalism is nothing less than a crusade to enfranchise the many in the economic life of the nation.

Along with the humble pub and the red telephone box, the corner shop is a quintessentially British institution. However, does recent news that McColls’, the UK’s largest local shop operator, has plunged into administration serve as yet more evidence that times are changing?