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Greggs sales pick up amid boost from ‘viral' mac and cheese

Greggs sales pick up amid boost from ‘viral' mac and cheese

The high street bakery chain said it has also benefited from 'better trading conditions' as growth accelerated following a slower start to the year.
Greggs said that new products are 'playing its part' in stronger sales, reporting that its new peach iced tea and mint lemonade drinks are 'performing well'.
It added that hot food items are also popular, with strong sales of its fried chicken goujons, pizza boxes and potato wedges.
The retailer's recently launched Mac and Cheese has also sold well after going 'viral on TikTok' earlier this year, with Greggs rolling it out to all stores last month as a result.
The company, which runs 2,638 shops, said total sales rose by 7.4% to £784 million for the first 20 weeks of 2025.
Like-for-like sales grew by 2.9% over the period on the back of stronger trading over the past 11 weeks, while overall sales were also supported by new shops.
The chain opened 66 new stores over the period, although it significantly offset these by closing 46 stores – which included 21 relocations.
Boss Roisin Currie said it is part of the company's strategy to open larger stores, shutting some smaller high street stores down as a result.
She said the group's expanded range of products, click and collect and delivery service means some of its traditional shops are not fit for purpose.
Greggs said it is still confident that it can grow its estate by between 140 and 150 net stores this year.
The update came as Greggs continues to battle rising shoplifting across its shops, with the business confirming earlier this week that it has put sandwiches and drinks behind counters in some of its stores as a deterrent.
The bakery chain typically displays the items in self-service fridges but has ditched this in at least five stores due to a spate of thefts.
Ms Currie told the PA news agency that there is a 'significant' cost caused by thefts in some areas, driving the company to launch security initiatives, which also include body-worn cameras.
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I dropped out of university – my business turns over £6m a year
I dropped out of university – my business turns over £6m a year

Wales Online

time43 minutes ago

  • Wales Online

I dropped out of university – my business turns over £6m a year

I dropped out of university – my business turns over £6m a year 'I make more in one hour on TikTok Shop than during a day in my physical store' Laura Mallows started off as a history student but now she is the founder of a multi-million-pound company (Image: Matthew Horwood ) Before her skincare brand became a TikTok sensation and hit the shelves of Boots and Superdrug Laura Mallows was just a girl from Cowbridge trying to figure out what to do with her life. "I was a fashion girly – I have done so many pivots in my life," Laura laughs, reflecting on her unconventional path. It is a winding journey that took her from a university dropout to founder of Mallows Beauty – one of the UK's fastest-growing self-care brands. ‌ If you've spent any time scrolling TikTok in the past couple of years chances are you've come across Mallows Beauty. Now turning over millions Mallows is instantly recognisable with its playful packaging, intriguing product names, and unapologetic commitment to self-love with its various body products. ‌ Yet behind the bright aesthetic is a story far from the glitz and glamour of a thriving entrepreneur but of self-doubt and starting over more than once. The Welsh entrepreneur has seen rapid expansion with her brand which has gone from her kitchen table to the shelves of Boots (Image: Mallows Beauty ) Speaking to WalesOnline from her bubble-gum pink office Laura claims she very nearly went down a different route. "When I was in school I was really good at history," she recalls. "My school encouraged me to go to Oxbridge to do it but I actually ended up picking Southampton because the nightlife was better." Article continues below However Laura quickly came to the realisation that this wasn't what she wanted to do with her life. "Three months into my history degree I was like: 'I don't like this'. I was falling asleep in my lectures. "There was a boy in my class and I told him: 'I'm going to have to copy your notes'. He just said: 'You're not listening in your lectures – you're snoring. This is bad – you need to stop.' "After that I just decided to drop out. I rang my mum and dad and was like: 'I'm not enjoying it.' They asked me what I wanted to do and I said: 'Fashion. I love fashion.'" ‌ Laura then switched to a fashion design degree and finally felt like she had found her place. After university she went on to land a job in London's Dune branch buying handbags and accessories. During this time, though, Laura was battling some internal demons. "I have always struggled with my body image," Laura admits. "From a young age I always wanted to be perfect. I struggled with eating disorders, yo-yo'ed in weight and was always trying to fix myself." Not long after her big city move she developed a case of acne, which only served to enhance her self-doubt. Read the biggest stories in Wales first by signing up to our daily newsletter here . ‌ "Every single product that I bought didn't work and every single counter I went to sold this dream," Laura says. "I just kept looking to these models and campaigns and thinking: 'Why don't I look like them? Why is my skin so bad? Why do I have such big pores?' I have suffered with anxiety for most of my life and had no idea why I felt the way I felt or what it even was." Her mental health hit a breaking point prompting Laura to have a complete breakdown. "It was really difficult but I came to realise that that wasn't real. That the girls in the pictures didn't actually look like that – they were airbrushed and filtered." The realisation sparked a question: what if there was a brand that embraced perfect imperfections? Laura says: "I started to think about how cool would it be if there was a brand that was showing spots and showing what real skin looked like – cellulite and stretch marks – so that people could look at their own stretch marks and breathe a sigh of relief." ‌ Laura wanted to make a brand everyone could see themselves in This thought stuck with her when she decided to move back to Wales. Laura briefly took on a job as a skincare buyer in Port Talbot. This lasted for just 20 days before she decided to quit with the dream of a genuine self-loving product still very much at the forefront of her mind. "There were so many influencers at the time doing that body-positive self-love thing but there was no brand doing it," she says. "That's when I decided I'd be the one to start it." ‌ Armed with little more than a homemade scrub recipe and her parents' credit card she started Mallows Beauty at her kitchen table in her former Llantrisant home. "Very naively might I add," she admits. In August 2020 she released her first product, a pineapple mask, and quickly orders started rolling in from big names like Skinny Dip and Harrods. Mallows can now be found across major retailers across the UK (Image: Mallows Beauty ) ‌ As the brand expanded Laura introduced a wider range of products including body butter, scrubs, and shaving butters sold both through her Cardiff flagship store and online via TikTok. A major turning point came in 2023 when Mallows Beauty won Superdrug's Marketplace of the Year award. "I remember it was at the top of the Gherkin. Around that time our TikTok Shop just boomed. At first it was steady but when affiliates really started working, and with the ads function, everything just exploded." Sales leapt from £50,000 a month to around £300,000. "Suddenly we were in 700 Superdrug stores. It just felt like we were going viral, viral, viral non-stop. It felt like magic. That was kind of my year I suppose." ‌ Mallows gained a cult following since going viral on TikTok with its brightly-packaged pink products (Image: Mallows Beauty ) When she realised she was making more in one hour on TikTok Shop than in a full day at her Cardiff store she shifted her entire strategy and closed the physical location to focus solely on her digital audience. It was a risk but it paid off. Five years later, at 33 years old, Laura has built a multi-million-pound brand with a fiercely loyal following. On Black Friday in 2024 alone she made £450,000. ‌ In the past two years Mallows Beauty has turned over about £6m (including VAT) and is now stocked at major retailers like Boots and Superdrug with a launch set for Morrisons in two weeks time. Online, though, remains a boom trade. "It has connected me with people from all over the UK and I'm expanding," says Laura. "I'm so lucky to have built such a supportive community online." 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I was obsessed with pineapple enzymes – vitamin C, vitamin A." ‌ The Cardiff-based beauty brand has become well known for its quirky packaging and eclectic fragrances (Image: Mallows Beauty ) Her curiosity extended beyond the UK market too. "I saw shaving butters trending in the US and I thought: 'That's a really cool product – can I make it?' The US made them brightly coloured and smell incredible so it really aligned with our brand. So we made them but when I was using it I was using other branded razors so then I thought: 'We need our own.'" The result? A sell-out product. "I think we sold a razor every minute until we sold out of 10,000 units. It was nuts," says Laura. ‌ Today the brand has evolved to include everything from hair removal products to accessories like their increasingly popular makeup bags. And it's not just Laura leading the change – Mallows' customers have become co-creators in the brand's development. "Our shave butters are now customer-led," Laura says. 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"TikTok and Mallows go hand in hand – it kind of feels like if there wasn't a TikTok there wouldn't be a Mallows. ‌ "The massive spikes of success on TikTok come from showing the ins and outs of running the business – the good days and the bad days," she says. The tough days are all a part of the journey, which is what Laura wishes she could tell her younger self. "I'd love to go back and hold my own hand or give myself a hug. Tell myself that it's going to be okay. That I should enjoy the good moments more. "Managing a team, worrying about profits, keeping the lights on... I was always so terrified. I don't think I fully enjoyed the magical moments. That's the advice I'd give myself now: enjoy the journey a bit more. Really soak in the highs." ‌ In light of this Laura has clear advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. "If I was an entrepreneur starting out I would be just storytelling as transparently as I can. 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Report: Kraft Heinz plotting a potential split
Report: Kraft Heinz plotting a potential split

Daily Mail​

time8 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

Report: Kraft Heinz plotting a potential split

Americans who like to pour ketchup on their mac and cheese, beware: your favorite combo is heading for a breakup. Kraft Heinz is plotting a potential split. It comes nearly a decade after the pantry brands merged in a high-profile mega-deal. The company could spin off much of the Kraft grocery business — including well-loved grocery items like the brand-name mac and cheese, Jell-O, Maxwell House, and Oscar Mayer — into a new $20 billion firm, according to the Wall Street Journal . That move would leave ketchup-maker Heinz and its sister condiments, including Grey Poupon, in a separate company. It's a big reset for a brand that ended up losing billions in value despite its big-money backing. The companies merged in 2015 , led by Warren Buffett and 3G Capital. But the combination has lost billions of dollars — the combined company reported Kraft and Oscar Mayer lost $15 billion of value in 2019. The combined company's stock price has dropped 60 percent since the merger. 'As announced in May, Kraft Heinz has been evaluating potential strategic transactions to unlock shareholder value,' a company spokesperson told 'Beyond that, we do not comment on rumors or speculation.' The company has been plotting major changes since the beginning of the year, including a potential sale of the Oscar Mayer brand, according to WSJ. But the negotiations haven't netted much interest. At the core of the brand's problem: American's shopping habits have changed substantially since the companies decided to join forces. At the time, shoppers were buying experimental condiments, packaged meats, and convenient entrees in droves. Now, today's consumers have turned their focus toward fresher foods, analysts told The changing consumer priorities have hurt Kraft's business, while supporting Heinz's . 'The grocery landscape has been tough for a while,' Neil Saunders, a retail expert at GlobalData, said. 'This means the big food firms are looking for ways to maximize the value of their businesses.' That shift has put pressure on multiple iconic companies. Earlier this month, Del Monte Inc., the 138-year-old American food producer that makes well-recognized canned fruits and vegetables, declared bankruptcy after seeing sales declines. WK Kellogg, the iconic cereal maker behind Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes, just sold itself to the Italian chocolatier, Ferrero. The American cereal company's May earnings report had some stinging numbers, including a 6.2 percent decline in sales. Amid the turmoil, some experts think Kraft Heinz might be making the right call to call their relationship over.

BREAKING NEWS Massive shakeup at iconic American brand could change pantry favorites forever
BREAKING NEWS Massive shakeup at iconic American brand could change pantry favorites forever

Daily Mail​

time9 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

BREAKING NEWS Massive shakeup at iconic American brand could change pantry favorites forever

Americans who like to pour ketchup on their mac and cheese, beware: your favorite combo is heading for a breakup. Kraft Heinz is plotting a potential breakup of the two companies, nearly a decade after the food mega-merger that combined two of America's biggest pantry brands. The company could spin off much of its Kraft-branded grocery business — including well-loved grocery items like the brand-name mac and cheese, Jell-O, Maxwell House, and Oscar Mayer — into a new $20 billion entity, according to the Wall Street Journal. That move would leave ketchup-maker Heinz and its sister condiments, including Grey Poupon, in a separate company. It's a big reset for a brand that ended up losing billions in value despite its big-money backing. The companies merged in 2015, led by Warren Buffett and 3G Capital. But the combination has lost billions of dollars — the combined company reported Kraft and Oscar Mayer lost $15 billion of value in 2019. The combined company's stock price has dropped 60 percent since the merger. 'As announced in May, Kraft Heinz has been evaluating potential strategic transactions to unlock shareholder value,' a company spokesperson told 'Beyond that, we do not comment on rumors or speculation.' American's shopping habits have changed substantially since the companies decided to join forces. At the time, shoppers were buying experimental condiments, packaged meats, and convenient entrees in droves. Now, today's consumers have turned their focus toward fresher foods, analysts told That shift has put pressure on multiple iconic companies. 'The grocery landscape has been tough for a while,' Neil Saunders, a retail expert at GlobalData, said. 'This means the big food firms are looking for ways to maximize the value of their businesses.'

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