News
The latest industry news from the business journalists at Catering Today. We bring you the latest on what’s happening in the restaurants, bars and catering industry, with exclusive stories, analysis, best practice and industry comment.
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Mar- 2020 -25 March
Covid-19: Off-licenses considered ‘essential’ businesses by government
The government has added off-licenses to its list of retail businesses that can remain open following a ban to close all non-essential retailers to combat the Covid-19 outbreak. This also includes licenced shops selling alcohol, including those within breweries. It comes after the prime minister instructed retailers and all restaurants,…
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25 March
Greggs closes all 2,050 stores
Greggs has temporarily closed all 2050 of its stores as it does its part to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. All of its stores closed at the end of business yesterday (24 March) as it revealed it has “acted quickly to follow Government guidelines, helping to prevent the…
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25 March
Covid-19: Government suspends gender pay gap reporting
The Government Equalities Office (GEO) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has taken the decision to suspend enforcement of the gender pay gap deadlines for this reporting year (2019/20) due to the coronavirus outbreak. The GEO and EHRC said the decision means there will be no expectation on…
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25 March
Britain ‘sees opportunity’ for food and drink deliveries, says CGA
In the week prior to the Prime Minister’s stay-at-home order, 53% of the public used or planned to use delivery as an alternative, according to the latest research from CGA. Some 13% of the public received delivery from a restaurant or takeaway either for the first time, or more often…
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25 March
Domino’s donates 100,000 pizza’s to NHS staff
Pizza takeaway company Domino’s has announced it remains open and will donate over 100,000 pizzas to NHS staff amid the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. Domino’s said in an email to its customers that it will be working with every one of its stores across the UK to donate over…
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25 March
The Alchemist announces temporary closures of all UK sites
Cocktail bar and restaurant The Alchemist has announced that all its sites are closed amid the recent outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. The company, which has 20 sites across the country, released a statement that confirmed the closure. The statement read: “Our venues are closed, which means we’ve put things…
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24 March
March Beer Duty payment to go ahead
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has confirmed that the March Beer Duty payment will not be cancelled, leaving thousands of small independent breweries “under threat”. This is according to the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA), which called the chancellor’s decision to collect March’s Beer Duty payments as “incredibly disappointing”…
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24 March
Distiller pledges alcohol towards 8 million bottles of hand sanitiser
Distiller Diageo has pledged to enable the creation of more than eight million bottles of hand sanitiser, by donating two million litres of alcohol to manufacturers amid the Covid-19 outbreak. The group behind Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff will now provide grain neutral spirit (GNS) to hand sanitiser producers across the…
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24 March
Contactless spending limit to rise to £45
Barclaycard has announced it will be rolling out the deployment of a new £45 contactless limit across UK retailers from 1 April 2020. The payments provider, which enables almost half of the UK’s credit and debit card transactions, said that the increased threshold would “help to prevent” the spread of…
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24 March
Caffè Nero to close all sites temporarily
Caffè Nero has said all of its stores will close temporarily by the evening of Wednesday 25 March until further notice, amid the Covid-19 outbreak sweeping the UK. The chain said that in the face of this “unprecedented challenge” it’s priority now is to “ensure the safety and wellbeing” of…
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