Financial results, jobs and dairy lead headlines

Food and drink financial results, criticism of beverage manufacturers and jobs lead the week’s top food and drink manufacturing headlines.

In the latest edition of Good week, bad week we unpackaged a collection of financial results released by Finsbury Food Group, ABF, Wyke Farms and Greggs.

We also focussed on the important Christmas trading period for the retailers, with Morrisons, Sainsbury and Tesco all reporting marginal increase in like-for-like sales.

But, they were still outshone by the discounters Aldi and Lidl, which recorded 13.3% and 18.5% boosts in Christmas sales compared with 2014.

Criticism

Meadow Foods’ milk price was slammed by the National Farmers Union (NFU).

The NFU said it was “morally wrong” for a business with pre-tax profits of £13.7M to pay so little for milk to dairy farmers.

Shepton Mallet Cider found itself in hot water with Unite the Union for upping sticks to Ireland and putting 127 people out of work.

Good week