{"id":7765,"date":"2022-08-24T10:38:40","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T09:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/08\/24\/news-in-review-69\/"},"modified":"2022-08-24T15:51:48","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T14:51:48","slug":"news-in-review-69","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/08\/24\/news-in-review-69\/","title":{"rendered":"News in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cOwn-label ranges are at record\nlevels of popularity\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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UK retail sales improved in July, according to data released on\nFriday from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Sales volumes rose by\n0.3% in the month, outperforming predictions of a 0.2% decline.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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According to ONS, sales volumes were 2.3%\nabove their pre-COVID (February 2020) levels, but down over the past\nyear and for the three months to July 2022 sales volumes were 1.2%\nlower.  A variety of promotions in July\ncontributed towards a boost in online sales, with volumes picking up by 4.8%,\nwhile food store volumes registered a 0.1% uptick in the month. As UK inflation\nrose to 10.1% in July, the ONS revealed last week that rising food prices made\nthe largest upward contribution to price increases over the month, with cheese,\neggs, bread, cereals and milk contributing the largest price rises.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Fraser McKevitt, Head of Retail\nand Consumer Insight at global market researcher Kantar, commented on grocery\nprice inflation, \u201cAs predicted, we\u2019ve now hit a new peak in grocery price\ninflation… It\u2019s not surprising that we\u2019re seeing shoppers make lifestyle\nchanges to deal with the extra demands on their household budgets.\u201d<\/em> He\ncontinued, \u201cOwn-label ranges are at record levels of popularity, with sales\nrising by 7.3% and holding 51.6% of the market compared with branded products,\nthe biggest share we\u2019ve ever recorded.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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As cost-conscious customers contemplate their\nweekly grocery shop, Aldi is poised to become one of the \u2018Big Four\u2019 UK\nsupermarkets, overtaking Morrisons. Aldi held a 9.1% share of the grocery\nmarket in the three months to 7 August, up from 8.2% last year. Tesco,\nSainsbury\u2019s and Asda currently reside in the top three slots by market share.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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ONS report that housing and transport, along with\nfood prices, make up the majority of price rises over the last year, with fuel\nprices up by 43.7% in the year to July.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Last week the UK became the third developed country\nto record double digit inflation in July, along with the Netherlands and Spain.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Reduction in cash use eases off<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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A recent UK Finance report analysing\npayment methods has highlighted that the speedy decline in the use of\ncash has eased. Although the use of cash is still expected\nto tail off, accounting for just 6% of payments by 2031, the report points out\nthat, \u2018Rather than the UK becoming a cash-free society over the next decade,\nthe <\/em>UK will transition\nto an economy where cash is less important than it once was but remains valued\nand preferred by many.\u2019 <\/em>Natalie\nCeeney CBE Chair of the Access to Cash Review has indicated that those\nfavouring cash \u201ctend to be older, poorer or more vulnerable, many of whom\nsimply can’t go digital.\u201d  <\/em>Card use, particularly\ncontactless payments, looks set to continue; in 2021, debit or credit cards\nwere used in 57% of all UK payments.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Markets <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Towards the end of last week, the FTSE 100 proved to\nbe surprisingly resilient following the news that consumer confidence has hit a\nrecord low. London stocks finished in the red on Tuesday, after a fresh batch\nof data from the Purchasing Managers\u2019 Index (PMI) showed manufacturing activity\nunexpectedly contracting, with the FTSE 100 closing down 0.61%<\/strong> at\n7,488.11 and the FTSE 250 closed down 0.99% at 19,306.89.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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On a lighter note<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Last week it was announced\nthat the first\nflight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft carrying an array of culturally significant\nmementos will be heading on a mission to the moon. Launching from the Kennedy\nSpace Center in Florida on 29 August the unmanned flight will commence\nthe Artemis program, a mission which will eventually return astronauts\nto the surface of the moon. Great excitement was created when it was revealed\nthat a toy of UK TV character Shaun\nthe Sheep will be on board. Director for Human and Robotic Exploration at the\nEuropean Space Agency’s (ESA) Dr David Parker, commented on the collaboration, “It\nis an exciting time for Shaun and ESA. We’re very happy he’s been selected for\nthe mission and we understand, although it might be a small step for a human,\nit’s a giant leap for lambkind.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Here to help<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Financial advice is\nkey, so please do not hesitate to get in contact with any questions or concerns\nyou may have.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may not get\nback the full amount you invested. The past is not a guide to future\nperformance and past performance may not necessarily be repeated.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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All\ndetails are correct at time of writing (24 August 2022)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOwn-label ranges are at record levels of popularity\u201d UK retail sales improved in July, according to data released on Friday from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Sales volumes rose by 0.3% in the month, outperforming predictions of a 0.2% decline. According to ONS, sales volumes were 2.3% above their pre-COVID (February 2020) levels, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":168680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32],"tags":[],"hd_content_source":[116],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7768,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765\/revisions\/7768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7765"},{"taxonomy":"hd_content_source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hd_content_source?post=7765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}