Business news in brief
Iceland goes bananas after plastic packaging woes
Iceland boss Richard Walker has admitted the group still has a “mountain to climb” on its plastic-free pledge after it was forced back to the drawing board on two key trials. The eco-friendly supermarket had to reintroduce plastic packaging across its bananas this summer – equating to 10 million plastic bags a year – after its paper band replacement failed to live up to hopes. In May, Iceland also scrapped a plastic-free greengrocer trial after just three months following a 20 per cent plunge in sales as loose produce and alternative packaging failed to resonate with local shoppers. But Mr Walker has come out fighting despite the challenges in its promise last year to eliminate plastic from its own label products by 2023. PA
Premier Inn owner returns £2.5bn to shareholders
Premier Inn owner Whitbread said it has completed a programme to return £2.5bn to shareholders after it sold its Costa Coffee chain to Coca-Cola for £3.9bn last year. Whitbread said £2bn is being returned to shareholders via a purchase of its own shares at a price of 4,972p per share in the latest phase of the capital
return programme. The latest £2bn phase of the capital return programme from May to July came after the firm’s first phase of the programme, which saw £482m worth of shares repurchased. PA
Johnson ‘must win over the City if he becomes PM’
Boris Johnson must rebuild trust with the City if he becomes the next prime minister tomorrow, the leader of the City of London Corporation has warned. Catherine McGuinness, who chairs the corporation’s policy and resources committee, also called on Mr Johnson to be more pragmatic about the impact a no-deal Brexit will have on the entire economy. She said: “Boris will have bridges to build with business. I believe from our experience in the past that, actually, he is quite business-minded, but we need to see that in practice after what he said.” PA
Travelodge to open more hotels at UK seaside resorts
Travelodge has announced plans to open more hotels at seaside resorts, creating hundreds of new jobs. The company said it was looking to open 26 new hotels in coastal towns under a multimillion-pound investment, creating 650 new jobs. Travelodge opened its first seaside hotel in Brighton in 1999 and has opened its 36th at Rhyl in North Wales. New locations include Lerwick on the Shetlands, Pwllheli in North Wales and areas of Cornwall, Jersey and Guernsey. PA
Garden city contest could explore untapped tourism
A competition to crown the UK’s best garden cities could boost the economy through untapped tourist potential, MPs have suggested. Similar to the UK City of Culture initiative, such a scheme could raise the profile of garden tourism, a report by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee said. They referred to a report last year which said tourism spending attributable to parks and gardens came to around £2.9bn in 2017, and quoted the National Garden Scheme, which has argued that the benefits of the sector are underestimated. PA