However, Specsavers believes it has found a model that can scale. The optical retailer has expanded its recycling scheme to all UK stores, adding around 300 locations to an initiative first introduced in 2022.

The move means customers can now drop off unwanted glasses, cases, cleaning cloths, contact lenses and contact lens packaging at every Specsavers branch, regardless of where the products were originally purchased.

In 2025, the scheme collected and recycled 72 tonnes of material from 659 stores and laboratories, almost five tonnes more than the previous year.

For Specsavers’ head of sustainability for the UK and Ireland Helen Curran, the scheme grew out of a gap in the market rather than a regulatory requirement.

“Products like glasses and contact lenses do not really fit into standard recycling schemes,” she said. While donation schemes for reusable spectacles have existed for years, there was no straightforward route for glasses, cases, cloths, contact lenses and blister packs to be handled together.

“We saw an opportunity to make it easier for customers and operationally easier for ourselves.”

Turning optical waste into raw materials

One question facing many retailer recycling schemes is what actually happens to the waste once it disappears into a collection box.

Specsavers’ programme is run with recycling specialist MYGroup, which separates and processes the material at its UK operation in Hull. According to Curran, the scheme captures a broad mix of products, from old spectacles and cases to contact lens packaging and worn lenses.

The retailer operates two collection streams: customer-facing recycling boxes in stores and separate collection points within its laboratories. The lab stream is designed to capture higher-value materials such as dummy lenses used in the manufacturing process.

Specsavers does not currently separate its reporting between customer returns and internally generated waste, nor does it break down the 72 tonnes by material type. Likewise, the company was unable to provide a figure for what proportion of its total UK waste footprint the scheme represents.

What it can say is that much of this material would previously have entered general waste streams.

“If a company was using a different partner that only took glasses and reused them in a developing country, you would only really use around 20 to 30 per cent of those frames,” Curran said. Cases, cloths, contact lenses and blister packs would typically have been discarded through conventional waste routes.

The collected material is ground down and repurposed into products including joinery boards and furniture. While the recycled content is not currently being incorporated back into Specsavers products, the company has worked with MYGroup to produce Specsavers-branded pens made from material recovered through the scheme.

“It is important for people to be able to say, ‘Wait, waste made this?'” Curran said.

The commercial case for sustainability

While sustainability projects are often presented as purely environmental initiatives, Curran argues that waste reduction and commercial efficiency increasingly go hand in hand.

“If we look at general waste for a commercial business, it costs more to have more general waste bins,” she said. “Recycling costs less.”

That thinking appears to be informing a wider sustainability programme across the business. Earlier this year, Specsavers won Retail Week’s Green Initiative of the Year award for changes to its ophthalmic lens manufacturing process. The project reduced hard-to-recycle plastic waste by 107 tonnes a year and cut annual carbon emissions by 230 tonnes through changes to lens production and stock management.

The retailer is also pursuing broader environmental targets. According to its sustainability commitments, Specsavers is targeting net-zero emissions across scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 2050, with interim goals to reduce operational emissions by 50% and supply-chain emissions by 25% by 2030.

Curran said the company is increasingly focused on reducing waste before it is created, particularly through packaging changes and material efficiency.

“This programme is just one area where we are looking to reduce waste overall, both by improving our recycling rates and looking at waste at source.”

The growing regulatory burden is also shaping decision-making. With measures such as digital product passports and wider sustainability reporting requirements moving up the agenda across Europe, Curran said the priority is understanding what data businesses need and ensuring suppliers are part of the process.

“Any big business will have the majority of its emissions sitting in scope three,” she said. “It is about working with suppliers.”

For Specsavers, the challenge appears less about persuading customers to participate than making participation simple. The company says customer feedback has been positive, although it has not published formal participation figures.

“I think everybody wants to do the right thing,” Curran said. “You just have to make it easy and accessible for them.”

As retailers face growing scrutiny over waste, packaging and supply-chain transparency, Specsavers shows the test lies in whether businesses can make these initiatives easy enough to become routine.

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According to Rithum’s retail director EMEA Mark Howell, the model is becoming an increasingly important part of modern retail strategy, allowing businesses to widen their assortment while saving on cash and warehouse capacity.

Retail Gazette caught up with Howell, who says the fundamental attraction of dropshipping is simple: retailers only pay for stock once it has been shipped by a supplier.

“The virtue and advantage of doing a model like dropship is you only pay for it when it’s shipped by the brand,” he explains.

For retailers faced with constraints such as warehouse capacity, store space and inventory budgets, dropshipping allows them to still provide for customers without ‘committing significant capital upfront’.

“Retailers want to solve a problem,” Howell says. “They want to be relevant for customers. They want to have choice and assortment.”

The approach has become particularly attractive as retailers seek to compete with ecommerce giants such as Amazon, where a significant proportion of products are supplied and fulfilled by third-party sellers operating from warehouses Amazon itself does not own.

“Mimicry is the highest form of flattery,” Howell says. “If it works, why aren’t I doing it?”

What does dropshipping actually change?

While dropshipping is often discussed as a commercial strategy, Howell argues the biggest shift happens operationally.

Instead of goods moving through a retailer’s own distribution network, suppliers become responsible for fulfilment and delivery. The retailer, however, remains accountable for customer experience.

“The physical movement of the goods is managed by a supplier,” he says. However, what does not change are customer expectations.

“Is it being delivered on time? Is the experience good for customers? Is it packaged well? Is it turning up in one piece? All of those things are still true.”

This, Howell says, creates one of the biggest challenges for retailers adopting the model: learning how to relinquish some control without losing visibility.

Many businesses, Howell says, still operate around wholesale processes built over decades. Buyers and merchandisers remain accustomed to approving every SKU, product description and item before it reaches customers.

One of the common mistakes is attempting to replicate those same wholesale processes within a dropship environment.

“If you try and replicate your wholesale processes just into dropship, then you will suffer. You will fail because you’ll still be slow.”

Instead, retailers need to adopt a “trial and learn” mindset, using supplier inventory to test new products and categories before making larger commitments.

The model can also help retailers free up warehouse capacity by moving slower-selling lines out of their own fulfilment networks while continuing to offer them online.

Trust and data become the new battlegrounds

Howell believes that as retailers move away from inventory-led expansion, trust becomes the defining competitive advantage.

“We shop with retailers that we get a good experience with,” he says. For that reason, supplier performance cannot be left to chance.

Retailers typically establish strict operational playbooks, service-level agreements (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs) for participating suppliers. Failure to meet those standards can result in financial penalties or removal from the programme.

“If you don’t do what customers expect, you’ll erode trust,” Howell says. He points to Marks & Spencer as an example of a retailer that established clear expectations from the outset when building its programme.

Alongside trust, product data is becoming increasingly important as consumers change how they discover products online.

Howell says retailers are now navigating a world where search is becoming more conversational, driven by platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI-powered tools.

“It’s not just enough to say it’s a laptop with 16GB of memory and a certain screen size,” he explains.

If consumers search for a lightweight laptop with a high-quality display, or a breathable hiking backpack suitable for long walks, retailers need product attributes that reflect those needs.

“If that information isn’t there, the AI engine isn’t going to find it.” The challenge is compounded by the fact that many retailers are still working to improve the quality of legacy product data already sitting across their websites.

Learning from past failures

While dropshipping and marketplace models have become commonplace in the US, Howell believes the UK market has historically struggled to achieve the same level of success.

Part of the reason, he argues, is that many retailers attempted to bolt dropship programmes onto existing wholesale systems rather than redesigning processes around the new model.

“UK retailers were trying to make these quite big ideas work, but they were still being bound to the legacy of old wholesale processes.”

By contrast, retailers that have succeeded have invested in new fulfilment models while remaining realistic about the limitations of older technology infrastructure.

“It’s about finding the best path with what you have,” Howell says. The growing maturity of the sector is also helping. More retailers have now seen successful examples in the market, while specialist technology providers and industry professionals bring greater experience than was available a decade ago.

Howell points to Next as an example of a retailer that has successfully modernised its fulfilment approach. While the retailer still has deep roots in traditional wholesale operations, it has developed new fulfilment models and moved beyond some of the limitations of legacy processes.

He also highlights Marks & Spencer’s approach, praising the retailer for having a clear vision of what it wanted its dropship programme to achieve and for setting clear expectations for suppliers from the outset.

Howell says retailers such as M&S, Adidas and Pets at Home may use different commercial models and operate in different sectors, but all face the same challenge of balancing customer experience, supplier relationships and operational efficiency as they expand their assortments beyond inventory held in their own warehouses.
At the same time, retailers are facing new pressures ranging from rising fuel costs and geopolitical disruption to changing regulation around artificial intelligence.

Howell highlights the forthcoming requirements under the EU AI Act, which will introduce new transparency obligations around AI-generated content and product information.

He also points to the future development of Digital Product Passports, which are expected to require significantly greater product-level data and traceability across supply chains.

While the final shape of those regulations is still evolving, Howell believes retailers will increasingly require suppliers to provide the necessary information as a condition of participation.

“The retailer is still heavily liable due to our laws and legislation in the UK.”

For retailers balancing growth ambitions with mounting operational complexity, the challenge is no longer simply expanding assortment. It is doing so while maintaining trust, visibility and compliance.

As customer discovery shifts towards AI-driven search and product recommendations, retailers may find that the quality of their product data matters just as much as the size of their catalogue.

The retailers that succeed will not necessarily be those holding the most stock, but those that can connect customers to the right products, at the right time, through the right fulfilment model.

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As part of the app experience, customers can browse products and receive styling advise and recommendations.

Head of Digital Product at ASOS Melissa Lim explains that the retailer decided to implement an AI stylist feature on ChatGPT because it had found that consumers were increasingly using agentic platforms as part of their shopping journey.

She says: “For us, this is about being present where customers are already discovering fashion and making sure ASOS is part of that inspiration journey, rather than sitting on the side-lines.

“The ASOS Stylist app helps us show up in that moment of inspiration, reach new potential customers and drive discovery back to ASOS.com.”

According to Lim, the ASOS Stylist app in ChatGPT is part of its strategy to reduce friction in the shopping experience. It’s part of a plan to meet consumers where they are.

She adds: “It is also a natural extension of our role as The Stylist at ASOS: helping customers discover, combine and wear fashion with confidence.

“By bringing that styling support into new platforms, we can show up earlier in the inspiration journey and make it easier for customers to turn ideas into outfits and outfits into purchases.

Lim highlights that the stylist tool recommends products that are “genuinely” right for the consumer.

She says: “At ASOS, we see our role as helping people style themselves with confidence, not steering them towards products that serve a short-term commercial objective.

“The value of this experience lies in giving customers recommendations they can trust, because building that trust over time matters far more than any immediate gain. That principle was fundamental to how we designed the stylist.”

She explains that up until now, ChatGPT has primarily been a text-focused experience. However, fashion is a visual experience and can oftentimes be an emotional purchase. Movement, draping and fabric details all come into consideration when buying clothes.

She says: “Our experience is designed to be highly visual, bringing immersive product imagery and video, including livestream content, directly into the chat.

“We’ve applied learnings from years refining the e-commerce journey on ASOS to create familiar user interface (UI) patterns so shopping in ChatGPT feels more familiar. This shows in the way ASOS Stylist presents an edit or recommends similar items as alternatives.”

She highlights that the retailer’s Stylist app enables its customers to shop more “confidently” as it offers advice and guided conversation on how to shop for a particular body shape or style.

She says: “User research and A/B test insights from our product pages also show that videos provide more nuanced information about fit, so bringing this more prominently within the chat experience allows customers to better visualise how an item might look like on them.”

Lim adds that the retailer made the decision not to allow consumers to log in to their ASOS accounts through the ChatGPT for the initial release, so consumers are referred back to ASOS.

However, if customers have chosen to preserve its chat history within ChatGPT itself, the stylist will have access to previous conversations.

Lim says: “It’s still early days, but so far we have seen promising early engagement, with traffic from the ChatGPT channel increasing since launch, especially from new users.

“Once this new audience lands on ASOS, we see them actively browsing and saving products rather than leaving without any further interaction.”

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At the centre of that idea is soil.

“We’re trying to work with nature rather than against nature,” he says. “We’re trying to regenerate the soil. If we can do that successfully, we can continue to grow all the crops and the nutrition that we need.”

For Nestlé, the issue is both environmental and also increasingly commercial. Climate shocks, volatile fertiliser prices and global instability are putting pressure on agricultural supply chains across Europe. Companies reliant on wheat, milk, sugar and cereals are now under pressure to secure long-term resilience as well as cut emissions.

Nestlé says nearly two-thirds of its greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and land use change outside its direct operations. The company has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 compared with 2018 levels and sourcing 50% of key ingredients from farms adopting regenerative agriculture practices by 2030.

That strategy is now shaping partnerships across the UK and Europe, including Nestlé’s recently announced four-year partnership with Soil Capital, which supports farmers in France, Belgium and the UK with agronomic advice, carbon measurement tools and financial incentives linked to verified environmental outcomes.

Warmington says the project is one of several Nestlé initiatives aimed at transforming agricultural supply chains at scale.

Paying farmers to rebuild soil

The Soil Capital partnership focuses on wheat, corn, barley and sugar beet, all major ingredients within Nestlé’s European supply chain. Participating farmers are rewarded financially for adopting regenerative farming practices across their land.

“The Soil Capital project specifically takes a whole farm approach,” Warmington says. Practices include reducing tillage, planting cover crops and keeping living roots in the soil throughout the year. The aim is to improve soil structure, increase biodiversity and capture more carbon in the ground.

“Every time you disturb soil, you’re breaking down the organic matter and the life of the soil,” he says.

Under the scheme, it is understood farmers receive payments linked to the amount of carbon sequestered on their farms. Soil Capital uses metrics such as monitoring, reporting and verification systems, alongside satellite data and field-level measurements, to model the environmental impact of farming changes.

The programme also builds on a 2023 wheat and corn pilot in France and now covers nearly 230 farmers across 13,000 hectares in France, Belgium and the UK. Earlier this year, Nestlé said the partnership would support sourcing resilience while also helping to reduce Scope 3 emissions across its supply chain.

Warmington argues the model matters because farmers are facing growing financial pressure from global instability and commodity volatility.

“What we see is growers in our supply chain being squeezed by big global shocks and stresses,” he says. “Whether it’s fertiliser prices going up or grain prices coming down, all these things put pressure on farmers and threaten the long-term resilience of British agriculture.”

He says regenerative farming can help reduce dependence on expensive external inputs such as fertiliser, especially during periods of disruption linked to global conflicts and shipping instability around routes such as the Strait of Hormuz.

“If you don’t need to use quite as much fertiliser as you used to, then that’s a massive boost to resilience,” he says.

Nestlé is also backing the Landscape Enterprise Networks initiative, known as LENs, which recently received a King’s Award for Enterprise for sustainable development. The project rewards farmers for delivering environmental improvements across landscapes and ecosystems.

For Warmington, success is not just about emissions targets.

“We want to make sure farmers are more resilient financially as well as resilient to changes in climate,” he says.

The Milk Plan and the methane debate

Nestlé points to its long-running Milk Plan as one of its strongest examples of regenerative farming in practice.

The programme, run alongside dairy co-operative First Milk, works with farmers in Cumbria and Ayrshire supplying fresh milk into Nestlé’s confectionery and coffee supply chains. According to Warmington, all milk sourced through the programme now comes from farms practising regenerative agriculture.

The company says Milk Plan farmers have planted more than 20,000 trees and over 42 kilometres of hedgerows. Nestlé also says 3,500 trees and 20 miles of hedgerow were planted in 2024 alone.

Speaking about the progress from the scheme, Warmington shares he recently visited a participating farm near Appleby in Cumbria.

“You can literally see the impact with your eyes,” he says. “You dig up a spoonful of soil and see all the life in it,” adding that hedgerows are one of the healthiest ecosystems on farms.

“The healthiest soil you’ll get on a farm is under a hedgerow,” he says. “It’s full of worms, beneficial insects and biodiversity.”

Nestlé says the programme has already delivered its 2030 regenerative agriculture target within that milk supply chain, and the company has also launched a plan with First Milk to halve carbon emissions by 2026.

But Nestlé continues to face criticism from climate campaigners over methane emissions linked to dairy production. Earlier this year, the Changing Markets Foundation accused the company of lagging behind competitors such as Danone on methane reduction targets, slamming the inaction as ‘Nestlé’s methane blindspot’.

However, Warmington response is that Nestlé’s current approach focuses on reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions rather than targeting methane in isolation.

“Our goal is around GHG reductions,” he says. “Carbon is one, methane is one, nitrogen is another.”

Rather than relying on feed additives designed to suppress methane emissions from cows, Warmington says Nestlé has prioritised regenerative dairy farming and soil carbon sequestration.

“We work with First Milk and they don’t use artificial feed supplements,” he says. “We’re supporting them on regenerative practices and sequestering carbon in the soil.”

According to Warmington, recent soil measurements from participating farms have produced encouraging results.

“One of the farms is nearly net zero just from how much carbon has been sequestered into the soil,” he says.

Satellites, soil samples and AI

Technology is becoming increasingly central to how food manufacturers measure sustainability claims.

Nestlé’s programmes use thousands of soil samples, carbon modelling systems and satellite monitoring to track whether regenerative practices are actually improving soil health and reducing emissions.

“If a farmer reduces tillage or plants a cover crop, the models and technology help us project what the climate impact is,” Warmington says.

Satellite imagery is also used to monitor field activity remotely, including whether land has been ploughed.

“Rather than sending someone out to a farm every year, satellite data can do that for you,” he says.

Nestlé is also exploring the role artificial intelligence could play in future agricultural monitoring.

Warmington says some technology partners are already using AI systems capable of monitoring biodiversity by analysing bird song recordings on farms.

“We’ve got partners who use AI to monitor bird life on farm,” he says. “AI models listen to the bird life and tell you what biodiversity improvements you have.”

Nestlé says it is continuing to expand regenerative agriculture projects across dairy, wheat and sugar supply chains in the UK and Ireland, with several new initiatives currently in development.

For Warmington, the long-term challenge is balancing climate action with commercial resilience.

“It’s about creating a more secure, resilient supply chain that works for us as well as the farmers,” he says.

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The retailer recently partnered with commerce platform Rithum to launch a new dropship model designed to expand product ranges without taking on the same inventory risk as traditional retail buying.

And, for Dorgan, director of multi-channel at Pets at Home, the move is less about chasing retail trends and more about building a supply chain capable of reacting faster to customer demand.

“The new development is a new functionality that we don’t currently have,” he says. “What we’ve been focusing on over the last few years is replatforming and putting in the infrastructure to unlock new capabilities like dropship.”

The timing is also notable. Retailers across Britain continue to face fragile consumer confidence, volatile freight markets and renewed disruption linked to instability in the Middle East. Shipping groups including Maersk have warned that conflict in the region is increasing fuel and freight costs while forcing vessels away from traditional Red Sea routes.

And, for companies handling larger products, the pressure is even more acute. Pets at Home’s supply chain includes bulky and difficult-to-ship items such as hutches, fish tanks and pet furniture, categories where warehousing and transport costs can quickly erode margins.

At the same time, Pets at Home is attempting to rebuild momentum in retail. In its latest pre-close statement, the group said its turnaround plan across Product, Price, Execution and Cost remained “on track”, with retail returning to positive like-for-like sales growth in the second half. Group underlying pre-tax profit for FY26 is expected to reach around £92m.

Faster launches, lower risk

Dorgan says the dropship model would allow Pets at Home to react to changing customer demand far more quickly than before.

“It will enable us to expand our range, onboard new suppliers more efficiently and bring products to market much faster,” he says.

“We are expecting to launch within this year. Once we’ve got agreements in place with vendors, the speed side is really quick.”

He added: “We will be shaving months off the traditional buying process.”

The retailer believes the model can help address three specific customer demands.

The first is personalisation. “Every single pet is completely unique and has specific needs,” Dorgan says. “This enables us, as the leading petcare specialist, to meet those specific needs.”

The second is logistics. Dorgan says bulky products have traditionally created friction in both storage and fulfilment.

“Things like fish tanks and hutches are more logistically difficult to ship and store,” he says. “It’s much easier for us to have a range where the product is delivered directly from a supplier.”

The third is speed and innovation. “Our customers love newness and innovation,” Dorgan says. “Every time we land a new range, in store or online, we see a really positive reaction from customers.”

The wider strategy reflects a broader shift taking place across UK retail, where dropship models are increasingly being used to extend online assortment while limiting stock exposure.

Managing challenges

Yet dropship, critics warn, also creates operational risk. Retailers can lose visibility over delivery standards, returns handling and customer experience once fulfilment moves outside their own network. Dorgan acknowledged the concern directly. “Yes, it is absolutely top of mind,” he explains.

“At the forefront of this is that we must maintain our quality standards, our pet welfare standards and the standards our customers expect.”

Rather than opening the floodgates to endless third-party sellers, Pets at Home plans to tightly curate suppliers.

“The way we’ll manage this is really about curating a range with trusted partners so that we can maintain those standards for customers and for the pets they love.”

The emphasis on control comes as the retailer continues investing heavily in digital infrastructure. Over the past two years, Pets at Home has simplified fulfilment operations, strengthened data capabilities and expanded its omnichannel ecosystem.

Online remains its fastest-growing channel. In its third-quarter update earlier this year, the retailer said online sales grew by “low teens” during the quarter, while subscription services rose to 15 per cent of consumer revenue.

The company also reported that 5 per cent of Pets Club members now use Easy Repeat subscriptions, while more than half of vet clients are signed up to care plans.

Dorgan believes the new dropship programme strengthens that broader omnichannel proposition.

“We’re seeing digital adoption really accelerate within the business,” he says. “This is additive to an expanding omnichannel proposition.”

AI and the future of product discovery

Alongside supply chain changes, Pets at Home is also preparing for a retail environment increasingly shaped by AI.

“The landscape of how people are finding products is dramatically changing,” Dorgan says.

“With the move towards AI, it’s more important than ever that search engines can discover products and that customers can really understand what they’re buying.”

The retailer is currently building out a wider AI roadmap, including an AI chatbot developed with Salesforce.

“We have been very active in terms of building out our AI roadmap,” Dorgan says. “Within the multi-channel space, we will be launching this year an AI chatbot.”

Looking ahead, he also pointed to the rise of AI shopping agents as an area Pets at Home is closely monitoring.

“What’s interesting for us is we’ve got so much expertise as a specialist,” he says. “How we can surface that to customers and really aid the customer experience is super exciting.”

For now, however, the retailer’s focus remains firmly operational: faster onboarding, broader assortment and more agile category testing.

Asked what success would look like in 12 months’ time, Dorgan returned to the basics. “A broader and more relevant range to customers,” he says.

“We’d expect to see us bringing new suppliers and products on much more quickly and being able to test and develop new categories at pace.”

Then came the caveat that sits underneath the entire programme; “we will always put pet welfare at the heart of everything we do.”

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The collapse followed years of heavy losses, including £36.7m in 2024 and roughly £60m the year before, as rapid expansion left the business exposed to rising costs, an overextended bar estate and a far tougher consumer environment.

However, for some, the timing is striking. Just months earlier, in November 2025, BrewDog’s leadership was still projecting a reset. In an interview with Grocery Gazette, COO Lauren Carrol described a business refocusing on its core, insisting “everything is about the beer now” as it leaned into a grocery division that remained resilient and attempted to shrug off previous controversy.

The off-trade was still a bright spot: BrewDog was the seventh-largest brewer in UK grocery, worth £157 million, with its craft portfolio alone at £103 million, and volumes growing ahead of the wider category. Five of the UK’s top ten craft beer brands were BrewDog-owned, with Punk IPA (£37m) and Hazy Jane (£22m) leading the charge.

For Tilray, led by CEO Irwin Simon since 2021, BrewDog is part of a much bigger play. The group has spent recent years diversifying beyond cannabis into alcohol and wellness, building a drinks portfolio that includes SweetWater, Montauk Brewing, Breckenridge Brewery, Terrapin and 10 Barrel Brewing.

With BrewDog, Tilray is aiming to build a global craft platform worth around $500 million in revenue, contributing to group annualised revenues of roughly $1.2 billion. However, the move also reflects a broader shift across adjacent industries, where cannabis and tobacco players are moving into beverage and wellness categories in search of more stable, mainstream growth.

Retail Gazette caught up with Simon to find out exactly went wrong at BrewDog, and what happens now?

Q&A: Irwin Simon, CEO of Tilray Brands

What went wrong operationally, and what will BrewDog do differently?

“BrewDog grew very quickly over the past decade, and with that pace of growth came complexity across our operations, cost base, and estate. Like many businesses in our category, we were built for a different market environment, one that has shifted significantly in recent years.

“What we’re doing now is bringing greater focus and discipline to how we operate. That means simplifying the business, prioritising our highest-performing channels and products, and ensuring our cost base is aligned with today’s reality.

“We’re also sharpening our execution, investing behind the brands and experiences that truly resonate with customers, while being much more rigorous in how we allocate capital and measure returns.

“The result is a more agile, focused BrewDog, one that’s built for sustainable, profitable growth over the long term.”

What is BrewDog’s new growth strategy and what does that mean for retail partners?

“Our growth strategy is rooted in focus, discipline, and a clear commitment to what we do best.

“At the heart of that is continued investment in our brand and our core beers, reminding consumers why BrewDog remains the UK’s number one craft brewer. Around that, we have clear channel strategies across grocery, bars, and international markets, each with a defined role to play.

“For our retail partners, this means greater clarity and consistency. We’re prioritising the products that drive rate of sale, supporting them with stronger brand investment, and being more selective and strategic with innovation.

“With the support of the Tilray team, we’re confident we can unlock sustainable growth across all channels while delivering stronger, more predictable performance for our partners.”

In UK grocery, is the focus on core lines or innovation over the next 12 to 24 months?

“It’s absolutely both but with greater clarity and intent. Our core beers, like Punk IPA and Hazy Jane, remain some of the most loved and recognised brands in craft, and we’re putting renewed energy and investment behind them to drive penetration and frequency.

“At the same time, innovation remains a critical part of our DNA. The difference now is that we’re being much more focused on where we can genuinely win, whether that’s in emerging styles, new occasions, or attracting new drinkers into the category. So retailers can expect a stronger core, supported by more purposeful, commercially-driven innovation.”

How are you reshaping your supply chain to deal with cost volatility, and what changes will retailers actually feel?

“We’ve taken a much more disciplined and strategic approach to our supply chain to ensure it is fit for today’s market.

“That includes simplifying our network, improving planning and forecasting, and working more closely with key suppliers to manage cost volatility and ensure consistent quality.

“For our retail partners, the impact is straightforward: greater reliability, improved availability of our core range, and more consistent execution in-store.

“Ultimately, it’s about building a more resilient and efficient supply chain that supports both profitability and long-term growth.”

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The disruption, led by animal welfare campaigners The Humane League UK at a Farmfoods-sponsored event this week, has thrown fresh light on an uncomfortable reality for the grocery sector. While most major retailers have moved away from caged eggs, millions of hens in the UK are still confined in cages, and some parts of the supply chain continue to rely on them.

New government figures due this week are expected to show that eggs from caged hens are at an all-time low. Campaigners say that this is progress worth noting, but they also warn that it risks masking a deeper issue and lulling the sector into a false sense of security: the pace of change is uneven, and without legislation and every supermarket committing, it may stall.

Progress made, but millions remain

“There has been amazing momentum,” says The Humane League UK campaigner Laurie Wills. “Most supermarkets are progressing and meeting their cage-free commitments, and government support for a ban is incredibly exciting.”

But she points to the scale of what remains: “7.3 million hens are still in cages today. And some companies are refusing to end cages altogether.”

A decade ago, around half of UK hens were kept in cages. That figure has fallen sharply, largely driven by retailer commitments and shifting consumer expectations, yet The Humane League has warned that progress is now slowing as the industry reaches its most difficult segment.

Among major retailers, Farmfoods has become the focal point. Campaigners describe it as the clear outlier, noting that it has not committed to phasing out caged eggs, even as competitors move ahead.

Across the market, progress has been uneven. Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Co-op and Sainsbury’s have already eliminated cages entirely.

Recent to join them, Aldi, Lidl and Asda are now fully cage-free for own-brand shell and ingredient eggs. Morrisons has removed cages from all shell eggs and the majority of ingredient eggs.

Tesco has made significant progress, though it still relies on caged supply for part of its ingredient range. Iceland has reinstated a cage-free commitment for 2027, after protests by The Humane League last year, but as recently as 2024, 71 per cent of its eggs were still from caged hens.

So, as Wills says, the direction of travel is clear and positive, but still leaves campaigners questioning how long until the practise is completely scrapped.

Price and the limits of voluntary action

Willis says retailers often argue that cost remains a barrier. Caged eggs are cheaper to produce, allowing supermarkets to maintain lower shelf prices during a prolonged cost-of-living squeeze.

Farmfood’s eggs policy says it is unable to source non-caged eggs in volume due to their price, adding the supermarket wanted to continue “offering everyday great value and are unwilling to deny customers access to the good value, nutritious food provided by eggs laid by caged hens.”

However, the Humane League disputes that argument. It estimates that a dozen cage-free eggs costs around 159.7p to produce, compared with 101.7p for caged eggs.

“It’s not a significant difference,” Wills says. “It feels like an excuse by corporations to make a tidy profit. It’s a small price to pay, but it makes a huge difference to animal welfare.”

And recent research from the University of Reading suggests many consumers are willing to pay more for higher welfare products, adding further pressure on retailers’ claims.

Campaigners also point to the example of discount chains. Aldi and Lidl have moved to fully cage-free supply without abandoning their value positioning, raising questions about why others have not followed.

Meanwhile, an investigation by The Humane League claims it found Farmfoods selling eggs from caged hens at the same price as Aldi’s free-range eggs

For Wills, the issue ultimately comes down to trust. “If you were stuck in a crowded lift for your entire life, would you want to wait for legislation, or would you want the company to get you out as soon as possible?”

She points to past commitments that have slipped. Farmfoods pledged in 2016 to move away from caged eggs following campaigning pressure, but later dropped that pledge. Attempts by The Humane League to re-engage the retailer, including direct outreach to its owners, were met with silence.

“That’s why we can’t rely on voluntary commitments alone,” she says. “We need legislation to hold the laggards to account.”

Why the endgame is proving harder

The government is now considering a ban on “enriched colony cages” by 2032, a timeline that reflects both political caution and the realities of supply chain change.

Wills acknowledges that ministers are likely trying to balance animal welfare with the need to give farmers time to adapt.

“This is something that needs proper planning and management,” he says. “But we believe this could be achievable. The sooner the better.”

The challenge lies partly at farm level. Many producers invested heavily in enriched cage systems following the 2012 ban on conventional battery cages and are still recouping those costs. At the same time, more than 80 per cent of UK egg production is already cage-free, suggesting the transition is well underway.

Government grants of up to £500,000 are available to support farmers switching systems, and campaigners stress that the push for a ban is not aimed at producers.

Alongside this sits a broader concern about imports. Industry groups have warned that banning cages in the UK could lead to lower-welfare eggs entering the market from abroad.

However the Humane League argues that risk is overstated, pointing out that the UK is around 89 per cent self-sufficient in eggs and that countries such as Germany and Austria have already implemented bans.

Perhaps the most complex issue lies beyond the supermarket shelf. While many retailers have cleaned up their shell egg supply, caged eggs can still be used in ingredients across ready meals, bakery and food-to-go. Data in this area is limited and often based on self-reporting, making it harder to track progress.

“That is a worry,” Wills says. “NGOs don’t have the capacity to monitor everything. That’s why a ban matters. It would remove the problem across the entire system.”

For now, the direction is set. Caged eggs are declining and public pressure is growing. However, these final stages of the transition is proving the most difficult, shaped by cost pressures and uneven commitments across the sector.

“The numbers suggest the end is coming,” says Wills. “But without action, millions of hens will still be left behind.”

Farmfoods has been contacted for comment.

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Founder Simon Mellin has often cited watching British nature documentary series Blue Planet as the spark. In 2019, the Manchester business began with a van and a belief that there had to be “a better way of doing this”.

Seven years later, it delivers groceries to more than 100,000 UK households, has expanded into the US, and recently secured a further £10m in investment, taking total funding above £60m. Group sales rose 13% to £52m in 2024, before another reported 20% rise in 2025.

Now it is making a more unexpected bet: Britain’s growing appetite for raw milk. Except it cannot sell raw milk at scale.

So instead, Modern Milkman has launched Mossgiel Organic Dairy’s “brewed milk” – a gently pasteurised product sold at £2.80 for a one-litre reusable glass bottle. It is positioned as the closest legal alternative to raw milk, with the taste and provenance consumers want, but none of the regulatory baggage.

For UK head of commercial Jenny Thomason, the demand was impossible to ignore. “Raw milk is three times bigger than the next product on our customer request list,” she says. “It’s by far the number one most requested thing we’ve seen.”

The ‘trust’ economy arrives in dairy

According to Thomason, the rise of raw milk is partly about taste, partly about wellness, but mostly about trust.

“There’s so much commentary and interest in what’s in food now,” Thomason says. “Customers are checking labels. They ask why something has changed, even when it hasn’t. They just want to know exactly what they’re consuming.”

Across grocery, shoppers, particularly younger ones, are scrutinising ingredients, processing methods and sourcing in a way once reserved for beauty labels or supplements. Thomason believes this is not a fad.

“The trends that stick around tend to be the ones rooted in something real,” she says. “Knowing where your food comes from is always going to matter.”

Raw milk itself remains tightly controlled in Britain and is banned in Scotland. Thomason is blunt about why: “It is illegal for a reason. It can be potentially dangerous.”

That makes brewed milk a commercial compromise. Mossgiel’s process heats milk to 68C for five minutes, preserving flavour while making it “just as safe as pasteurised milk”, she says. The dairy claims the process uses around 90% less energy than conventional treatment.

Premium milk for the brunch generation

The bigger wager may be premiumisation. Thomason says milk has long been treated as a commodity, but Modern Milkman thinks a section of consumers will pay more for provenance, sustainability and quality, much as they do for kombucha, craft bread or speciality coffee.

“The word premium can just mean expensive,” Thomason says. “But if something carries the same weight of process and provenance as a craft kombucha, then customers understand the value.”

Her preferred comparison is not another dairy brand but Fever-Tree. “If you’re drinking really good gin, why would you use poor tonic? Mossgiel is that for coffee. If you’re buying great beans, why wouldn’t you want high-quality milk?”

That may hint at where the brand goes next. Today the model is direct-to-consumer, but asked whether partnerships with premium coffee brands or coffee shops could follow, Thomason smiles: “Watch this space.”

The operational case is strong. One-litre bottles appeal to households with tighter fridge space. The return-and-reuse system cuts plastic. Customers like seeing “far less plastic in their bins”, she says, and often mention concerns around microplastics.

And shelf life is practical rather than niche: five days minimum on delivery, three days once opened, in line with much of the wider fresh category.

Can dairy clean up its footprint?

The next challenge is bigger than packaging. “Milk is a high-carbon industry,” Thomason says plainly.

Like the rest of dairy, Modern Milkman is watching sector-wide sustainability advances such as feed innovation, methane reduction and regenerative farming. But Thomason explains that there is tension between lowering emissions and maintaining consumer trust.

“How do we make dairy more sustainable while making sure customers still feel they’re getting a high-quality, uncompromised product?”

That balancing act may define the category over the next months and year, but for now, however, the company is focused on breakfast. Thomason says economic pressure is nudging more consumers towards eating at home rather than out, creating a room for indulgence in smaller ways: better eggs, better coffee, better milk.

Modern Milkman started by reviving the milk round, but Thomason says its next phase may be turning breakfast into affordable luxury. Looking ahead, she says Modern Milkman expects to deepen its own-label range, expand premium partnerships and push further into breakfast-at-home occasions, where convenience and quality increasingly overlap.

However, over the longer term, its challenge will be scaling a circular delivery model while proving to both itself and consumers that sustainable, higher-margin grocery can move beyond niche and into the mainstream.

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We sat down with Advanced Supply Chain UK and European Sales Director Stuart Greenfield to find out what it could mean for prices, deliveries and festive stock.

Q: If the Strait of Hormuz reopens in April, what will the first stage of supply chain recovery look like?

A: “The first stage of reopening the Strait of Hormuz will involve clearing the ships stuck in the Strait. Stranded vessels need to move first to clear shipping routes, which will then allow maritime traffic to resume and start the process of getting back to some level of normality.”

Q: How long could it take for retail supply chains to return to normal after the Iran war disruption?

A: “Retail supply chains are likely to rebound in two stages. The first is a near-term adjustment, where it’ll take around 3-5 months for transportation costs and schedules to return to close to the levels seen before the start of the Iran war in February.

“The second stage of recovery is likely to take much longer and is difficult to predict, because the near-term rebound will happen when retailers are preparing for peak 2026. Supply chains will start to return to a more even keel at a time when there’s seasonally high demand for shipping and freight. This could mean it takes much longer for retail supply chains to stabilise following the shocks caused by the Iran war.”

Q: Will recovery happen in clear stages, and what can retailers expect in each phase?

A: “Looking at how supply chains have recovered from recent conflicts, including the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the start of Houthi attacks in the Red Sea in 2023, does suggest retail supply chains will go through a two-stage adjustment, once the Strait of Hormuz is opened.

“The first stage is likely to see transportation costs start to decline over a period of months, with the gradual restoration of shipping and transportation schedules. This period is all about clearing backlogs caused by the disruption and taking the first steps towards stability. Confidence starts to return to markets and supply chain focus generally shifts from short-term, reactive and corrective measures to longer-term planning.

“The second stage of normalisation typically happens over a longer period, when retail supply chains resume and sustain regular transportation routes and there’s less volatility in operating costs. This phase of stabilisation is often defined by greater levels of predictability in terms of cost control, route planning and overall stock inventory management.”

Q: Could higher shipping and energy costs still affect Christmas prices, even if routes reopen soon?

A: “It looks increasingly possible that the impacts of the Iran war could lead to higher prices this Christmas, because even if the Strait of Hormuz opens in the coming days or weeks, it could still take retail supply chains 3-5 months to adjust to the shocks.

“Retailers will be ordering Christmas stock during a period when transportation prices are still inflated by the impacts of the war. What we are seeing is retailers aiming to mitigate these costs to keep retail selling prices low and protect consumers. Supply chain strategies are prioritising alternative route planning and optimising freight capacity to create efficiencies, while also eliminating wastage from supply chains.”

Q: How quickly could freight rates and transport costs fall once vessels start moving again?

A: “It’s possible that transportation costs will start to fall in around three months and that they return close to pre-war levels in around five months.”

Q: What backlog problems could ports, carriers and retailers face after the Strait reopens?

A: “The initial challenge is dealing with a bottleneck of vessels and freight at ports, which is likely to be caused by clearing the Strait of stranded vessels.

“The recovery of shipping routes could also be impacted by clearing mines and other security risks in the Strait of Hormuz, delaying the restoration of shipping schedules.

“There’s also a knock-on effect on road transportation, as clearing backlogs of stranded vessels could see a sudden surge in demand to clear ports of containers.”

Q: What steps are retailers taking now to reduce disruption and protect margins?

A: “Retailers have already begun diversifying transportation modes and routes, opting for alternatives such as air freight. They are also interrogating loading strategies, so that they can find ways of moving more goods per square foot of vehicle space. These solutions can help to manage supply chain costs and improve resilience against disruption and delays.”

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Lopes sat down with Retail Gazette to talk about how she has grown the business from a Devon farmhouse start-up into a direct-to-consumer brand navigating supply-chain shocks, tougher new green regulations and rising sector competition.

From kitchen table to cherry pickers

When Katie Lopes, and fellow co-founder Nicola Piercy, launched Stripe & Stare in 2017, the business began in her Devon farmhouse, with stock piled among her children’s Lego. Today, the underwear label operates from a 30,000 sq ft warehouse in Devon, complete with cherry pickers and a team of 20 to 25 staff. It is a far cry from what she describes as the “shoebox office” that followed those early kitchen-table years.

Growth came without the usual start-up playbook. “We didn’t even have a marketing budget and our community did all the selling for us,” Lopes says.

Word of mouth carried the brand in its first years, before it moved early into podcast sponsorships with The High Low and Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place.

Then came Oprah Winfrey. After first discovering the brand in a US wholesale boutique in Montecito in 2022, Winfrey later featured Stripe & Stare on her Favourite Things list in 2023. “We literally sold out what she posted in a day,” Lopes says.

And now recent figures suggest the company has moved well beyond niche status. Stripe & Stare recorded £11m sales in 2025, up from £5.5m in 2023, with the brand reportedly selling more than 2 million pairs of underwear and fifteen thousand five star reviews.

Why Stripe & Stare kept warehousing in-house

Unlike many direct-to-consumer brands, Stripe & Stare chose not to outsource fulfilment. Lopes, who has a background in retail, says third-party logistics (3PLs) providers often struggle during sudden peaks in demand, while the business wanted direct access to stock and flexibility over how products are assembled for sale.

“A black knicker can be sold as a single black knicker. It can be sold as a four-pack. It can be sold with a black bra as a set,” she says, speaking about the brand’s ‘recipes’.

“Not having direct access to our own stock was really frustrating. We need to be able to make things on the fly”.

But that decision for freedom has also brought operational and logistical complexity. Lopes recalls one busy Black Friday after a delayed warehouse move left stock disorganised just as sales came in three times above forecast. The result, she says, resembled the “leaning tower of Pisa” made of boxes.

The wider supply chain also remains difficult. “Since we launched in 2017, I don’t think there has been a moment where there’s felt like calm and consistency in the world on a macro level,” she says, citing Brexit, Covid, inflation, tariffs and Middle East disruption.

The business is currently 49% up year-on-year, Lopes says, but had forecast 60% growth, leaving excess stock to manage.

Likewise, the company aims to ship 80% of stock by sea and 20% by air, but with disruptions in to shipping due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and high freight prices due to rising costs of oil, longer lead times often force more expensive, and less sustainable, air freight. “You get used to chaos after a bit,” she added.

Betting on comfort, sustainability… and scrutiny

Stripe & Stare’s pitch rests on comfort and fibre choice. Lopes says she spent years researching fabrics before launch, rejecting cotton for its water and land use, and bamboo because processing it into wearable fibre can be chemically intensive. Instead, the company chose TENCEL modal. “We’re never saying it’s perfect,” she says. “You’ve just got to pick.”

This sentiment carries over to the brand’s choice of suppliers. Lopes began developing the product in 2006, spending more than a decade refining fit, fabric and sourcing before bringing the brand to market. Central to that process was a manufacturing partner in Guangdong, China, whom she met through trips to Hong Kong.

That long partnership helped Stripe & Stare through its earliest years, allowing smaller production runs and product tweaks while the proposition was tested. Yet after Covid, changing customer attitudes towards China, as well as the need to diversify risk, pushed the business to broaden its supplier base. Production now also takes place in India, Vietnam and Portugal, with Portugal used in particular for smaller runs and newer fabric developments.

And Stripe & Stare’s sustainability pitch now stretches beyond fibre choice. The company, which became a B Corp in 2021, after an 18-month process that began in 2020, says its warehouse is plastic-free, with products stored in cardboard boxes or compostable bio-bags. Customer orders are shipped in recyclable paper envelopes or boxes.

Through a partnership with Ecologi since 2020, the business says it had funded the planting of more than 158,000 trees by April 2026, alongside carbon avoidance projects. The Devon warehouse and office are powered by renewable electricity, according to the company’s Earth Day statement.

For Lopes incoming regulation is less threat than opportunity. On digital product passports and packaging reform such EPR, she says regulation gives smaller, sustainable brands a chance to prove claims in an era of greenwashing.

“It’s yet another layer of work and admin,” she says. “But we also have to welcome it.”

Looking ahead, there is still plenty of room to grow. Lopes says Stripe & Stare’s priority is straightforward: deepen growth in the UK, where brand awareness is still only 8% of its potential customer base.

The business also remains firmly focused on direct-to-consumer sales – with around 90% through its own channels and 10% through wholesale partners such as Selfridges and Nordstrom – while overseas markets such as the US, Australia and Ireland will be approached more lightly through press and organic influencer activity rather than heavy paid marketing.

Meanwhile, a new above-the-line campaign is due to launch in June, centred on what Lopes describes as the realities of modern womanhood and the role of dependable everyday essentials. The company’s hero knicker range still generates around 70% of revenue, with bras and sleepwear making up the balance.

Retail remains a secondary experiment, but not a priority. A recent King’s Road pop-up in London was used less as a long-term store strategy than a place for customers to touch product, for events and for wholesale meetings.

Asked about rivals, she points to legacy giants rather than newer challengers: “Women don’t just have to go to the same place they’ve always gone to buy their knickers.”

For Lopes, the task now is simple but hardly easy: continuing to turn a niche favourite into a mainstream name,  and, as she puts it, keep telling more women they are “the best women’s knickers in the world”.

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