Stanton & Novelty is one of 10 Blackpool businesses that handmakes UK rock, but cheap imports and MP scandals are frustrating attempts to gain geographical protectionToday, Parma Violet, bubblegum and salted caramel flavours are being made. On other days, it could be banoffee pie, hot chilli, the nuclear-strength super sour or, for an afterwork treat, Jägerbomb-flavoured rock.At a small factory making Blackpool rock, the flavours might be different from previous generations but the techniques and skills are the same as they were 60 years ago. Continue reading...

28 Apr 2024 11:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

People want more seafood than the oceans can sustainably supply, so a German firm aims to plug that gap with cultivated fish – but are consumers ready to buy it?The redbrick offices, just north of Hamburg’s River Elbe and a few floors below Carlsberg’s German headquarters, are an unexpectedly low-key setting for a food team gearing up to produce Europe’s first tonne of lab-grown fish.But inside Bluu Seafood, past the slick open-plan coffee and cake bar, the rooms are dominated by gleaming white tiles, people bustling about in lab coats, rows of broad-bottomed beakers and pieces of equipment more at home in a science-fiction thriller. A 50-litre tank (a bioreactor) is filled with what looks like a cherry-coloured energy drink. The liquid, known as “growth medium”, is rich with sugars, minerals, amino acids and proteins designed to give the fish cells that are added to it the boost they need to multiply by the million. Continue reading...

28 Apr 2024 06:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

They have been resilient amid wider high street decline – but units are now emptying in areas such as Southall, west LondonThe south Asian high street is facing a fight for its future in Britain as customers scale back wedding celebrations because of the cost of living crisis and young people’s changing preferences.Businesses in London and Manchester have said they have witnessed a huge decline in customers after the pandemic with the cost of living crisis prompting many to decide against the traditional big south Asian wedding and to seek out cheaper products online. Continue reading...

27 Apr 2024 06:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Independent shopkeepers say prices they pay at supermarket’s cash-and-carry arm Booker are often higher than in Tesco storesVillage shopkeepers say Tesco is consistently undercutting them by selling products for less in its stores than via its wholesale business Booker, stoking concerns about the power of the UK’s biggest supermarket chain.Tesco, which has 27% of the UK grocery market, bought the cash-and-carry group in 2017 for £3.7bn, promising that the deal would benefit shoppers and independent retailers. Continue reading...

22 Apr 2024 07:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Scheme is part of effort to reduce ‘staggering’ quantities of textiles going to landfill or incineratorInstead of throwing stained, ripped and misshapen clothing in the bin, Britons are being asked to stick the dregs of their wardrobe in the post in a trial aimed at tackling the “staggering” quantity of textiles sent to landfill or incinerated each year.A third of consumers do not know what to do with tops, dresses and trousers that can no longer be worn, figures show, with a similar number admitting to putting such items in their household waste bin. Continue reading...

22 Apr 2024 05:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

The schemes must be voted on before introduction, but some say councils can in effect force local employers to fund them• ‘It’s torn the town apart’: seaside shops rebel over BidAs councils tighten their purse strings and strip services back to the basics amid a worsening local authority financial crisis, it is things such as flowerbeds, street cleaning, events and signs that go on the budget chopping block first.That’s where Business Improve­ment Districts (Bids) step in – schemes funded by a levy on local companies on top of their business rates, with the money going to a private, not-for-profit company designed to help boost the attractiveness of the area. Continue reading...

14 Apr 2024 05:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

UK vineyards are thriving as far north as Yorkshire and Scotland as investors cash in on tax breaks and hotter summers“We’ve never had frost here,” says Adrian Pike, gesturing across rows of vines just starting to show signs of tiny buds in the weak Kent spring sunshine.Westwell vineyard is on the site of a former monastery and sits close to the Pilgrims’ Way on the North Downs, the historic route to Canterbury that runs along the top of the hill behind the vineyard. Continue reading...

12 Apr 2024 12:11 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN