Tuesday, 19th February: Have you tried Greggs’ vegan sausage roll? After hearing an unconvinced review from a colleague, I decided to stay away, but the rest of the UK seem to be loving the new addition to the menu, as it helped boost sales in the first seven weeks of January by 14.1%.
The meat-free alternative to Greggs’ classic sausage roll was introduced in January as their take on grasping the attention of those taking part in “Veganuary”, as well as those who abide by a meat-free diet for the additional 11 months of the year.
Veganuary aside, this could be the push Greggs needed to appeal to a growing population of Brits who are eliminating or cutting down on meat consumption. The positive start to 2019 resulted in the group increasing their forecasts for the full fiscal year of 2019 and resulted in them sitting proudly at the top of the FTSE 250 for the entirety of the day.
Fresh data on Tuesday suggested that the UK aren’t suffering as much as previously thought at the hands of Brexit, as total earnings including bonuses, although slightly below forecasts, rose by 3.4% in the three months to December, which is an equal pace of growth to that in mid-2008.
Although the economy seems vulnerable and has slowed down since the referendum in 2016, statistics surrounding the labour market demonstrated the populations resilience against Brexit. The number of people working in the three months to December also rose by 167,000, and surpassed forecasts, making it the largest increase since Q1 of 2018.
The FTSE 100 struggled again today as more banking groups continued to drag at the bottom, causing the index to close 0.56% lower at 7179.17.
Photo © Ian Rainey (cc-by-sa/2.0)