Money blog: Subway drastically changing how you order (2024)

McDonald's has lost the EU trademark for "Big Mac" when it comes to chicken sandwiches after a long-running dispute with an Irish restaurant chain.

The European Court of Justice upheld a complaint from Galway-based Supermac's against the US fast food giant.

The trademark for the words "Big Mac" was initially registered with the EU International Property Office (EUIPO) in respect of meat, fish and chicken sandwiches as well as a range of restaurant services by McDonald's in 1996.

Generally, the rights of a holder to an EU trademark are revoked if it has not been put to genuine use within a continuous period of five years.

Supermac's argued McDonald's had insufficiently used the contested trademark in relation to "chicken sandwiches".

McDonald's and the EUIPO put forward examples of advertisem*nts and display boards relating to "Grand Big Mac Chickens".

However, the court found the evidence was not sufficient to prove McDonald's had used the contested trademark enough in relation to poultry products.

Supermac's complaint was upheld and McDonald's protection of the phrase for such purposes was overturned.

Subway is following in the steps of some of its fast-food rivals with the introduction of self-service kiosks and its own dedicated app.

Customers will be able to place orders via digital screens sent to the kitchen instead of making their way along the chain of ingredients.

The self-service kiosks will be in all UK stores before the end of the year,The Grocerreports.

The sandwich shop chain is also launching a new app which will enable online orders - and offer customers points towards its "Subway Rewards" loyalty scheme, it said.

The points can eventually be converted into "Subway Cash" to spend on menu items.

Dan Holm, digital leader at Subway, said: "As we think about Subway's future, we're doubling down on our global digital commitment to streamline and simplify the guest experience from start to finish."

Rishi Sunak's claim in last night's debate that Labour will raise everyone's taxes by £2,000 comes from a "dossier" published by the Tories last month, which purported to calculate their tax and spending plans.

The headline "finding" was that over the course of the next four years, Labour had roughly £59bn of spending plans but only £20bn of revenue-raising plans.

That leaves a £39bn hole. Divide that by the number of households in the country (18.4m) and you get a figure of just over £2,000.

Now, there are all sorts of objections to the way the Conservatives have carried out this exercise.

For one thing, they deployed a weapon Labour don't have: because they're the party of government, they were able to ask Treasury civil servants to cost some Labour policies.

Today there has been a backlash - including from the Treasury's permanent secretary himself - about the way the Tories have portrayed these sums.

The £2,000 figure isn't really a Treasury calculation or an "independent" one, as Mr Sunak called it last night. It's a Conservative figure - but it was put together in part with figures commissioned from civil servants.

Labour also says many of the policies in that Tory dossier won't cost half as much as the Conservatives claim.

Regardless, while £2,000 sounds like a big number, it's actually a cumulative total from four years. A far more representative figure to take from the dossier is £500 - the annual figure.

And while that's not to be sniffed at (if you believe it - which you probably shouldn't) it's far, far smaller than the tax rises we've all experienced under this Conservative government since 2019.

They amount, all told, to an average of around £3,000 a year per household or, if we grit our teeth and tot it up as the Tories did in their dossier, over £13,000 over the course of the parliament.

Which rather dwarfs that £2,000 figure.

Current account holders looking to make a quick bit of cash can benefit from a flurry of new switching incentives being offered by banks at the moment.

Several providers are fighting for new custom with offers ranging from £100 to £200 upfront plus other rewards.

Now is actually a good time if you're considering switching - as everything should be wrapped up in time for payday at the end of the month, when many people also have bills coming out of their account.

Anyone looking to make the move to a new provider and qualify for the switching offer will need to do so through theCurrent Account Switch Service.

The latest data from CASS found Nationwide set a record for UK current account switches in the last three months of 2023.

Santander

Switchers can get £175 by opening up a Santander Edge current account. The incentive also offers 1% cashback on household bills paid by direct debit and 7% AER on a linked savings account.

To get the bonus, you'll have to complete the full switch, set up two active direct debits and pay in £1,500 within 60 days of telling Santander to switch your account.

The offer is only available to those who've never had a switching bonus from Santander.

Lloyds

Similarly to Santander, Lloyds is offering £175 for people who switch to its Club Lloyds, Club Silver or Club Platinum accounts.

Customers can also choose an extra reward of a year's Disney+ subscription, six cinema tickets, a Coffee Club and Gourmet Society membership or magazine subscription.

The switch has to include the transfer of at least three direct debits, and you won't be eligible if you've switched to Lloyds, Halifax or the Bank of Scotland since April 2020 or the switch occurs after 30 July.

Nationwide

Existing Nationwide current account holders can make £200 by switching a non-Nationwide current account with at least two direct debits to a new or existing FlexDirect account.

To be eligible, you'll need to have held an eligible Nationwide account on 31 March, and you can't have received a switching bonus from the building society since 18 August 2021.

TSB

Those who choose to switch to TSB will get a £100 bonus and up to £60 in cashback, plus a reward if they stay until January 2025.

To qualify for the £100, switchers will need to make a minimum of five debit card payments before 5 July. For up to £60 cashback, you'll need to make at least 20 debit card payments each calendar month.

Eligible customers can also choose an extra reward in January, such as a night away, monthly cinema tickets or a NOW Entertainment membership.

Similarly to previous offers, you can't have benefited from a TSB switch bonus since 1 October 2022.

First Direct

Customers will get a £175 welcome bonus if they switch to a First Direct 1st Account, including access to a linked 7% AER regular saver account and a possible interest-free £250 overdraft.

You can't have had any account with the bank before or have opened a current account with its partner company HSBC since 1 January 2018.

To get the bonus you'll have to pay in £1,000+ within 30 days of opening the account and use the debit card five times.

The shelf price of popular German biscuits Choco Leibniz will stay the same despite manufacturers Bahlsen choosing to remove one biscuit from each pack.

The old 125g packs - available in milk chocolate, white chocolate, orange chocolate and dark chocolate - contained nine biscuits, with the new 111g packs containing eight.

Despite this, prices have remained at £1.85 at supermarkets including Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's, according to Assosia.

Speaking to the Grocer, a spokeswoman for Bahlsen claimed that rising input costs were to blame for the shrinkflation, adding that shelf prices were at the discretion of the retailer.

"Bahlsen is a mid-sized family-owned manufacturer, and along with the entire industry has been, and continues to be, under enormous cost pressures," she said.

"Prices for essential raw materials, such as cocoa, have risen significantly and recently reached unprecedented highs in Europe. Labour and energy costs have also been rising continuously over recent years.

"We therefore made the decision to adjust the pack weight from 125g to 111g, which is clearly labelled on pack."

Sky News have approached Bahlsen for comment.

Aldi has come out on top again as the cheapest supermarket - by £3.32 for a shop.

The discount chain claimed first place in the latest Which? analysis, once again above rival Lidl, with a 69-item shop costing an average of £121.56.

It was found to be £36.57 cheaper than Waitrose, which was the most expensive, with a trolley shop averaging £158.13.

Of the "big four" supermarkets, Asda was the cheapest at £137.91.

The shopping list used by Which? is made up of the country's most popular and widely available products. It includes branded items like Dolmio sauce and Heinz baked beans, as well as own-brand products.

By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire, business reporter

The fight against the cost of living crisis could have another familiar target - the cost of shipping.

Regular readers of Sky News may remember the attacks on ships in the Red Sea around Christmas and the associated extra expense of getting goods from A to B which can in turn influence how much end goods cost.

The issue has reappeared - the average cost of a 20ft-long container being shipped from Shanghai to Europe was $3,740 (£2,927),up from $2,300 (£1,800) at the beginning of the month.The latest costings will come out on Friday.

WH Smith posted positive results today. Strong performance across its UK and international travel business led to an overall sales rise of 4%.

New Toys "R" Us shops within stores have been opening and 25 more are in the works, the company said on Wednesday morning.

The London Stock Exchange index that it is a part of - the FTSE 250 of the valuable companies - is up 0.36%.

Oil prices are remaining at two-month lows with a barrel of benchmark Brent crude oil priced at $77.51.

The pound buys $1.2666. Sterling is still doing well against the euro - good news for those going on holidays to eurozone countries - as £1 equals €1.1738.

Banknotes featuring the King's portrait are being issued from today.

The new banknotes will co-circulate alongside those featuring Queen Elizabeth II.

The portrait ofCharleswill appear on all four banknotes - the £5, £10, £20 and £50.

In line with guidance from the royal household, the new notes will only be printed to replace those that are worn, and to meet any overall increase in demand.

The approach aims to minimise the environmental and financial impact of the change.

Read the full story here...

ByEmily Mee, news reporter

When Maddy Alexander-Grout went to university, she didn't realise she had an undiagnosed ADHD spending addiction.

Alone in the big wide world for the first time, she soon found she had a "hole that burned in my pocket" and would "spend and spend and spend".

Using credit cards, overdrafts, store cards and even a hardship grant from her university, she would spend her money on things she didn't need, such as clothes, shoes, CDs and books.

Before long she was in £40,000 of debt - and in the third part of our Psychology of Shopping series, we hear her story.

Maddy says she didn't tell anyone about her out-of-control spending.

"I knew what I was doing was wrong but I felt really ashamed of the fact I was just spending money all the time," she says.

Only her housemates knew she was struggling because she was unable to pay the bills, but even they didn't know the true extent of her debt and Maddy found herself "hiding" from them because she owed them money.

Miles from home and feeling alone, Maddy stopped speaking to her parents for a long time as she felt "ashamed" and didn't want them to "bear the burden of having to bail me out".

All the while her spending sprees continued.

Maddy explains that much of it was borne out of wanting people to like her - she thought if she had the trendiest clothes and was going out drinking then she'd be popular.

But she'd wake up hungover from a night out and "spiral", then go out and buy more clothes.

When the debt became too overwhelming, she stopped opening her post and moved to a different city in an attempt to get away from it.

It even got to the point where a bailiff turned up at her house, which she described as a "horrible situation".

In desperation she turned to the Citizen's Advice Bureau, which told her she would have to go bankrupt - an idea that only filled her with "more shame".

It was then that Maddy decided to finally sort things out.

Citizen's Advice told her about the 50-30-20 rule - where you spend50% of your incomings on rent and everyday bills, 30% on wants and needs, and 20% on debt.

Given it would still have taken her about 60 years to clear her debt this way, Maddy says instead she adopted her own 50-10-40 rule - which gave her just 10% of her incomings for food and socialising.

She was living on just £15 a week for food so learned to pick up only yellow sticker deals from the supermarket, which would lead to some "random" meals.

"I discovered I really love tinned tomatoes on toast with cheese so I lived on that solidly for about two years," Maddy says.

Now, Maddy has launched an app called Mad About Money to help others - particularly those who are neurodivergent - achieve their money and wellbeing goals.

She says if she had been taught about money at a young age, she would've realised the "massive consequences" of her spending.

"The whole reason I set up the app is to give people that education and a support community - if they don’t want to talk to their friends, they can come and talk to people who are in similar situations so everyone can cheer each other on," she says.

"If other people had said to me, we're in the same position, we're doing the same thing, I wouldn't have felt as ashamed about it."

Looking back on what happened to her, she says it's "part of my story so I don't regret it" and it has taught her a lot, though she does regret putting her parents under stress and not talking to them sooner.

She now talks openly with her children about money so they can make more educated decisions.

As for the urge to spend money so that people like her?

"I've loads of friends now - I rock up in joggers half the time and they don't care," she laughs.

Join us tomorrow as we conclude this series with a look at the tactics big brands use to get you to spend more