Laser-etching being tested as an alternative to plastic stickers as part of attempts to cut waste

Tesco is testing the etching or “tattooing” of avocados as a way to cut out the millions of plastic stickers used to label them.

The retailer said is was working with a fruit supplier, Westphalia, to scrap the stickers currently used on its extra large avocados and replace them with a laser etching, in a trial launched this month.

Visits to high streets, shopping centres and retail parks fell by 3.6% in May, continuing downward trend

Retailers have called on the government to rethink business rates and planning laws to revive high streets and shopping centres after visitor numbers fell again in May.

Shoppers at stores on high streets, shopping centres and retail parks decreased by 3.6% in May, maintaining a trend that began last summer as a mini-boom in high street visits after the pandemic lockdowns petered out.

FTSE 100 firm DS Smith, which works with firms over alternatives, urges next government to match global standards

Whoever wins the UK general election must tighten regulations to reduce the use of plastic packaging, match global standards and drive “green consumption”, the boss of one of the sector’s biggest manufacturers has urged.

Miles Roberts, the chief executive of the packaging firm DS Smith, made the call to the next government as the company celebrated passing its target to replace more than 1bn pieces of plastic 16 months early.

Global industry ‘in crisis’ as fears about Brazilian harvest help push wholesale prices to record highs

Orange juice makers are considering turning to alternative fruits such as mandarins as wholesale prices have “gone bananas” amid fears of poor harvests in Brazil.

Prices of orange juice reached a new high of $4.95 (£3.88) a lb on commodity markets this week after growers in the main orange producing areas of Brazil said they were expecting the harvest to be 24% down on last year at 232m 40.8kg boxes – worse than the 15% fall previously predicted.

Shoppers at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi have all swung to Labour from Conservative since 2019

The election may not yet be in the bag for Labour, but research suggests it is in the shopping basket.

The party’s voters now make up the majority of customers at all leading supermarkets apart from Waitrose, according to the latest polling from retail research firm GlobalData.

Shareholders complained about payouts amid missed bonus targets on sales, profits and IT aims

The online fashion specialist Boohoo has backtracked on a plan to pay three top executives £1m each in bonuses after reporting widening losses and falling into debt.

The move comes after shareholders complained that bonuses were going to be awarded to directors despite the chief executive, John Lyttle, and Boohoo’s co-founders, Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, missing bonus targets on sales, profits and cashflow as well as environmental and IT aims.

Ex-England footballer’s deal with Alibaba’s AliExpress follows tie-ups with Hugo Boss and SharkNinja

The former England footballer David Beckham has signed up as a global ambassador for AliExpress, an online retail platform owned by the Chinese tech group Alibaba.

The deal comes in the run-up to the Euro 2024 football tournament, which starts in June, and is the latest tie-up for Beckham, following hot on the heels of partnerships with the suit maker Hugo Boss and the air fryer maker SharkNinja in recent weeks. He is also an ambassador for Tudor watches, Tempur mattresses, Unicef, and Nespresso coffee machines, and he also fronts a Walkers crisps ad.

Biggest drop since November 2021 as ‘unseasonable’ weather pushes retailers to continue promotions

Shop price inflation has eased to the lowest level since November 2021 after retailers cut the price of big purchases such as furniture and TVs as households keep a tight rein on spending amid cost of living pressures and poor weather.

Prices rose at an annual rate of 0.6% in May, down from 0.8% in April – the slowest pace since November 2021 – according to the latest monitor from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) trade body and the market research firm NielsenIQ.

Unite union says workers are being ‘fleeced’ by supermarket’s changes to pension contribution rules

Almost 1,000 workers at two Morrisons warehouses will strike for the next three days over a cut in company contributions to their pensions which they say is worth up to £10m a year.

The warehouse stock controllers, cooks, canteen staff, and administrators at the sites in Gadbrook, Cheshire, and Wakefield, West Yorkshire, who earn between £12 and £13 an hour, say they will lose out by an average of £500 a year each from the company’s plan to reduce how much it puts into their pension pot while forcing workers to pay more.

Pre-tax profits increased to £672.5m but retailer says it will reduce costs further as part of five-year plan

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Marks & Spencer has said it will step up cost cuts in the year ahead despite increasing annual profits by a better-than-expected 41%.

Stuart Machin, the chief executive of the clothing, homeware and food retailer, said it was “at the beginnings of a new M&S” with “wind in our sails, and confidence that our plan is working” as pre-tax profits rose to £672.5m in the year to 30 March. Sales rose 9.4% to £13bn.