TEA CRISIS HITS BOILING POINT
Hotel inferno Cost of cuppa rises after Brexit
THE price of a cuppa is set to rocket due to Brexit, warned a leading tea manufacturer.
Typhoo’s chief executive Somnath Saha announced last night that the firm will increase its prices in the coming week.
He blamed Britain’s vote to leave the EU for the hike because it sparked economic uncertainty and the pound has plummeted in value.
Typhoo imports its tea leaves from abroad, meaning costs have gone through the roof.
A bag of black tea that previously cost around £100 now costs up to £150. A box of 240 Typhoo teabags currently costs around £3.
Mr Saha said of Brexit: “This is an absolute disaster for a company ED GLEAVE FLAMES tore through Britain’s oldest hotel yesterday, as 150 firefighters battled to save the building.
The 300-year-old Royal Clarence Hotel in Exeter was gutted after fire spread from the Castle Fine Art gallery next door on Friday. A ruptured gas main continued to fuel the blaze yesterday. Chief fire officer Lee Howell said: “The community has lost a historic building which is a landmark of the city.” the size of ours. The very sharp fall in the pound means the impact is at least a quarter of a million pounds a month for us.
“This is having a very negative impact on our business and we are really suffering.”
He insisted Typhoo had no option but to pass on the cost to customers as balancing the books had become “unsustainable”.
Mr Saha added: “We don’t have big enough margins between us and retailers to absorb all these costs.
“We’re looking at how to mitigate some of them from our labour, overheads and marketing costs, which will affect the growth of the business and employment in the long run. But neither us nor the retailers can absorb any more cost increases.”
The fallout from Brexit has also seen prices go up on supermarket favourites including Marmite and Pot Noodle.
Mr Saha said: “For everybody, it’s been so difficult after June. We can’t plan anything. You don’t know what is going to happen next week. There is so much volatility.
“This is a really serious situation for us. Nobody wants to do this, but ultimately some of the costs will go to the shoppers. There is no other option.
“It’s one of the favourite drinks of this country. It’s unfortunate. It’s nobody’s fault – it’s due to the economic conditions.” IRA supergrass Raymond Gilmour has been found dead at his home in Kent.
The 55-year-old’s death is not being treated as suspicious, although according to reports his body had been lying undiscovered for up to a week and had to be identified by photos.
Mr Gilmour, 55, fled Northern Ireland in 1984 after taking the witness stand against IRA suspects in a trial that later collapsed.
The Londonderry native became a police informer when he was just 17.
Fellow agent Martin McGartland described friend Mr Gilmour as “a broken man... left to die in the gutter”.