News

A phasing-out of traditional long pointed knives and a ban on online knife sales are two of the proposals in a National Knife Report being launched this week by Staffordshire County Council’s Trading Standards.

Tesco has today announced annual pre-tax profits of £3.13bn, 10% up on those of the previous year and the highest ever achieved by a UK retailer.

JML, which specialises in in-store television screen product demonstrations, has joined forces with Miniweb to launch a TV Keys shopping service that allows consumers to buy products directly by remote control.

Key European buyers, accompanied by the leading trade housewares titles which cover their territories, are to visit this year’s Exclusively Housewares show.

From this year, Frankfurt’s Tendence show will be split into three separate trade fairs – Living, Giving and Collectione, plus the Passage section.

"Fantastic", "informative and thought-provoking", "top buyers and executives attend", "provided even more than I expected", "a wonderful setting"...just some of the many comments received from delegates following this month's Housewares Conference.

Fear of the recession is driving consumer behaviour more than an actual change in circumstances, with around a third of people admitting they have cut back on spending through concern of what may happen to their financial situation.

The Signature knives and knife block set by Robert Welch Designs has won a prestigious Red Dot Award for product design.

In advance of next week's Budget, BHF Group has put to the Chancellor that the return of standard rate VAT from 15% to 17.5% should be deferred by at least 15 weeks - and ideally by 15 months.

Retailers are being deceived into thinking that heavyweight bakeware is of premium quality, when the non-stick coating can in fact be of a poor standard.