Quick Take — Whole Foods Market to open six new Daily Shop shops in the UK in the coming months

The point-of-sale assortment will include :

A range of certified organic and conventional products.

Prepared food options, including lunchtime salads, sandwiches and seasonal favourites.

An assortment of meat and seafood with a variety of convenient grab-and-go offerings. All meat items are certified for animal welfare and include organic options and all seafood offerings are sustainably caught in the wild or responsibly farmed.

A bakery department offers fresh bread daily and everyday favourites such as Whole Foods’ Viennoiserie and brown butter biscuits. The department also provides a wide variety of special diet items, including gluten- and dairy-free brownies, doughnuts and biscuits.

A Wellness & Beauty department with a wide assortment of supplements, skin care, hair care and more.

A speciality department highlighting artisan cheeses and producers, as well as local and premium beers, wines and spirits.

The first Daily Shop experiment was made in 2024 in the United States.

The pdv area will range from 300 to a maximum of 1,000 square metres.

Quick Take — Ramadan has become, in fact, a micro-season of consumption.

In the weeks preceding and accompanying the holy month, promotions on rice, pulses, flours, oils, dates and certified meats increase.

Communication often remains discreet, but the commercial organisation is now evident on the shelves. … In recent weeks, for example, Carrefour has activated dedicated discounts on a selection of halal products, with offers valid on certified meats, basic ingredients and packaged references linked toIftar meals, the evening time when the daily fast is broken.

According to the Ismu Foundation, as of 10 July 2025, Muslims in Italy number more than 1.7 million, representing over 30% of the resident foreign population.

And it is no coincidence that the latest surveyby GS1 Italy’s Osservatorio Immagino – the eighteenth, relating to Italian large-scale retail trade between July 2024 and June 2025 – photographs a growth in the market of the 635 halal-certified products, i.e. food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical goods that comply with the ethical and hygiene standards of Islamic doctrine.

The advancement of this segment was 3 .5% in value and 3 .1% in volume, supported also by the expansion of the offer on the shelves (3%).

How Walmart became an advertising powerhouse while remaining focused on the food, non-food and e-commerce business

It is a pity that no Italian company has had the size but above all the vision to approach the world as these giants have done. In Italy everyone thought: e-commerce must be sustainable on its own. It happened to Esselunga at home until it had no rivals, but Amazon and Walmart disprove this vision. E-commerce is sustained by other, more profitable revenues

Quick Take — The fertiliser factor: why bread, pasta, meat and eggs are at risk

It is no exaggeration to say that about half of the world’s population meets its food needs through the use of fertilisers. In this scenario, Iran plays a crucial role as the world’s fourth largest exporter of urea.

We are talking about a vital substance to ensure abundant harvests of wheat and cereals, the mainstays of our diet. With the war in Iran turning the straits into a shooting gallery, the situation has become critical. Prices are out of control: urea has risen by 25% in just one week, putting spring sowing at risk If with the Russian invasion the problem affected wheat and sunflower oil, the war in Iran shifts the critical issues to fertilisers.

‘If the situation continues, consumers could see higher prices for bread within six to ten weeks, for eggs within a few months, and for pork and broiler chicken within six months, estimates Raj Patel, a food systems expert at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs’.

Source: the Financial Times, which adds:‘The Middle East is one of the world’s biggest fertiliser producers, while the Strait of Hormuz is a crucial sea route for exports.

According to CRU data, about 35 per cent of global urea exports pass through this waterway. Urea is the most widely used nitrogen fertiliser, which in turn supports about half of the world’s food production.

The route also handles 45 per cent of global exports of sulphur, a key ingredient used to produce phosphate fertilisers, as well as significant volumes of ammonia, a key ingredient for nitrogen fertilisers,’ he says. Moreover, according to recent work, oil and gas price increases of similar amounts to those observed so far, if sustained over time, would lead to a price increase of 1.4 per cent one year from now, compared to a scenario without the shock.

In the article in Il Sole 24 Ore of 6 March below, the problems of the fruit and vegetable sector are highlighted.