Food for thought

27:02But at the same time, we serve our customers. So if their business is not doing well because the consumer confidence falls down and they sell less, then we make less money. And you also see that change geographically. Different markets are in different states now. Different economies are in different states. And different products are being consumed. So grocery sales are pretty fixed. But then a lot of discretionary spending fluctuates. Okay, thank you very, very much. It's interesting to hear the different ways it affects different businesses. Before we go to the news, I'm just going to do a few more of these wedding messages because I am enjoying them.

27:40Richard says, been invited to an impressive family wedding in southern France, incurring large financial hit, plus such inconvenience. Took a deep breath and said, we're not going. Booked four months in Goa over next winter instead. No brainer. I mean, if you can do four months in Goa for a similar cost. Ian from Harrogate says having been married three times I've concluded that big weddings are often an exercise in vanity by some of the parties involved in my experience the bigger the wedding the more disastrous the marriage spend the money on something more worthwhile and don't be so egotistical is what I would say to any couple looking to have an extravagant wedding there's a lot more of these we will get through some more of them in the next half an hour roll the window down do you hear that?

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28:53Wake Up To Money with Felicity Hanna. Hello. If you're just joining us on Wake Up To Money, then welcome. Welcome to Monday. Just before six o 'clock, we're going to be talking about a growing trend for sort of Bridgerton inspired weddings. Not necessarily Bridgerton themed, but lots of people coming from overseas, particularly from America, to have their sort of charming, quintessentially British wedding here in the UK because of Bridgerton, inspired by Bridgerton. And it did get us thinking here in the newsroom and asking this morning, do you feel under pressure to pay to attend weddings? It can be really expensive, can't it?

29:29Even when they're still in the same country, if you're buying an outfit, booking a hotel, buying a present, it can all add up. Do you feel like that's money well worth it to celebrate a couple? Or do you think that it starts to get a bit silly, a bit ridiculous? You know the drill. You can text me on 85058. You can send me a WhatsApp message on 08085 909693 and you can use the hashtag WakeUpToMoney on social media. Trevor in Bristol has texted, Last year my son went to a friend's wedding in Kenya. As part of the ceremony, he and his friends were asked to learn a local dance, which they understood they would perform at the wedding reception.

30:06When they arrived, they were informed they would have to dance following the bride down the aisle to the altar. This they did and it was recorded and went viral on social media. Trevor, thanks very much indeed for that. Some of you then, lovely stories. Some of you certainly feel like it's perhaps a bit rude for a couple to be asking people to travel or fork out a lot of cash to attend their wedding. Let me know your thoughts. 85058. But we have been talking about oil prices this morning. We've been talking about how the Strait of Hormuz is once again closed. It seems to be quite excitable there at the moment.

30:43It seems to be that we're not necessarily moving towards a resolution. We heard last week that the government is planning for what might happen to food supplies if the Iran war continues. Government sources told the BBC that in worst case scenarios, a breakdown in the supply of carbon dioxide could mean we see shortages of food like chicken and pork. Now, the Coal Chain Federation, which represents chilled food traders across the UK, is warning that unless government action is taken soon, food inflation will become uncontrollable. Let's talk to its CEO, Phil Pluck. Phil, good morning. Thank you very much indeed for being with us.

31:22You've actually written to the Chancellor about this. What are you saying? Well, unfortunately, food inflation is already here. fuel increases which actually are roughly around about 50 people litre has added another 120 million just in the last four weeks really to our our operating costs so i've written to the chancellor today to say or last week should i say to say other countries are intervening and actually helping to keep food inflation down the reality of the uk is that food inflation has already been added too. One of your contributors earlier said we're in a high risk phase. And looking at the price of a barrel of oil this morning, we can see that that's steadily increasing yet again.

32:11And what that means is that since 2022, the invasion of Ukraine, we've seen food inflation at around about 22%. And that's because of the fluctuation in energy and the fluctuation in fuel. And it's the fuel element that's really adding to food inflation today. We think at the moment that's going to be between 5 % and 15%. 5 % probably on UK food production, but possibly 15 % on that food that comes in via UK ports. How much food typically comes in via UK ports? How reliant are we on that food that could be facing that higher rate of inflation? hugely um because around about 50 of all food travels through the high energy high fuel coal chain um that's total food and if you then look at what comes in by the ports via the coal chain that's 50 of that so we have huge amounts now we're not we cannot in the uk create our own food source.

33:22So we are reliant on other parts of the world, particularly for products like chicken, etc. So our food protein comes through the ports. And of course, it's not just that we're all feeling the price at the pump, we are filling up with petrol or diesel, but your industry is dealing with that. And also, I suppose, electricity to keep the food cold. What kind of costs are your businesses seeing? So energy at the moment we are anticipating will be added to in terms of inflation in the autumn. We have in place energy deals which are reasonably stable at the moment but by autumn we will have to renegotiate those and to give you an idea of the amount of energy we use in order to keep food at say minus 20 or minus 25 then we're using the equivalent of somewhere in the region of all of Greater Manchester and all of Leeds added together in terms of energy usage.

34:24So we are huge energy users, as well as huge fuel users, because we've got around about 100 ,000 commercial refrigerated vehicles on the road as we speak. They're delivering food and pharmaceuticals right now. And so when you add roughly around about 120 million pounds in the last five weeks to that bill, plus fuel increases, or should I say energy increases that will be coming in the autumn, then we are looking at potentially substantial inflation adding to fuel. And I said to the Chancellor, you have the ability to actually affect that. You have the ability to stabilise that food inflation, because we have the highest fuel prices in the world.

35:13We have the highest energy prices in the world. And that's come about because of the taxation that sits within those prices. So the Chancellor can act and we are pushing hard to make sure that she does. Well, a Treasury spokesperson told us businesses are paying more because of the war in the Middle East. They said we're determined to keep costs down, which is why we have extended the 5p fuel duty cut twice until September and will continue to monitor the situation. So what more do you want to see then from the government? Well, if we look at that 5p duty, the prices just in the last few weeks have gone up by 50 pence a litre.

35:54So if you take that 5p reduction off that was due to come in in September, then we're not looking at a huge amount here. And what we also have to understand is that as the price of fuel has gone up, so has the Treasury income, because actually, the more you put price up in terms of fuel, the more the Treasury gets in terms of taxation. Is that a fair, I've read a few people saying that, and it is certainly true, isn't it, that as the price of fuel goes up, there is more, taxation is a percentage, and so there's more going into the country's coffers. But on the other hand, the economic hit that we are seeing, that we've been talking about already on the programme this morning is going to stifle growth.

36:38And so that's going to mean money doesn't go into the government's coffers. So it's not like Rachel Reeves is sitting there laughing and raking it in. No, and you're right. You have to look at the fuel price and the fuel taxation in terms of, you have to isolate it because the wider economy is suffering. I absolutely get that. But what the Chancellor must understand is that we have in this industry and in all industries, seen massive increases in taxation in terms of national insurance, in terms of the loss of red diesel allowance, in terms of energy pricing. And so there is a point where government have to look at food, because when you look at the food inflation over since 2022, that's had a very real effect.

37:26And that effect is it's created fuel, sorry, it's created food poverty for millions of people. We are a G7 rich country and yet we have a disproportionate amount of food poverty in this country and that's largely due to all of the taxation that's been applied to the production, the distribution of food. So this is a point where we've actually got to say our industry can't take that cost anymore. We've gone from 9-10 % margins, down to 3 % to 5 % margins, there is no leeway left in this industry. So that price has to be put on the consumer. Phil, well, that was going to be my question. When will consumers start to see the fallout from this?

38:15What could it mean? How quickly could it feed through to supermarket shelves? Pretty quickly. I mean, at the moment, what we're seeing is that the retailers are trying to keep that price down. they are having that cost applied to them so there's got to come a point where the retailer actually says can we continue to have a price war between each other or can or do we have to actually pass that price on to the consumer I will predict that those those those five six seven ten percent increases that we are seeing in the supply chain I predict that they will be passed on reasonably quickly. And we will be seeing by the autumn, which isn't so far away, one season away, we'll be seeing by the autumn, quite substantial increases yet again in food.

39:06And that will be pushing far more people into food poverty. Phil, thank you very much indeed for joining us on Wake Up To Money. Phil Pluck there, CEO of the Cold Chain Federation. Shanti Kellerman still with me listening to that from Seven Investment Management. Shanti, talking about food price inflation, we get the latest inflation data out on Wednesday, don't we, that will start potentially to show the impact of the Iran war feeding through into prices. Yeah. So in February, we were at around 3 % inflation. And obviously, a little bit of a wild card this month, but the kind of net expectation is about 3.5%.

39:48And things like food prices probably haven't fully thread through yet. If you're looking at the cost of fertilizer going up, the food we ate in March was grown a while ago and food will have more of a forward impact on inflation. And I think the other thing to remember though, is we get these published figures, but in reality, everyone's inflation rate is different depending on what you do. Do you own a car? What kinds of food do you eat? What's your patterns? Do you need to buy a new washing machine, you know, those kinds of things. So it's about kind of thinking about where you're impacted and how you can change your behaviour if you want to try to keep those costs down.

40:26It's a really, really important point, isn't it, that people are affected differently by inflation and households on lower incomes who spend more, a greater percentage of their income on food, Shanti, are more likely to feel that those inflationary pressures we were just hearing about, just talking about, in their budgets, because so much of what they spend goes simply on keeping the household fed? Yeah, absolutely. And things like, you know, housing costs can tend to be fixed for a period of time. On the other hand, we have about a million people this year that need to remortgage a lot of those coming off of really low fixed rates from 2021.

41:03So, you know, that cohort is, you know, we've got more than 60 million people in the UK. It's not a huge percentage of the population, but it will really matter for those people. So the impacts will be very disproportionate. Will in Devon has a message to say, my wife buys chicken for the kids and it's imported from China, which I find bonkers. I refuse to eat it. The welfare pollution and carbon footprint of some of these imports is just not talked about enough. Will, thank you very much for that. Also still with me is Michael Wrightblatt, chief executive and founder of the global fraud prevention platform, Forta.

41:39Michael, we've been sort of teasing ahead to this. We've been looking forward to talking to you about Mythos. In the last few days, finance ministers, central bankers, people in the banking industry have been talking quite a lot about this, this new AI model that they're worried could pose a serious cyber security risk. Mythos is the new model from the AI company Anthropic. And it's something Sean was talking about last week with Kieran Martin, the former director of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre. In 2018, when you find a new vulnerability, the average time for that to be exploited was two years and four months.

42:14already before this new model, it's down to 28 hours. Mythos will take it down to less than an hour. To be fair to Anthropik, sure, it doesn't hurt them if they release an announcement that says our new model is so good it breaks all security. But to be fair to them, they've put out technical details of what the model can do. They've given access to the British government for an independent evaluation, and they've given time for that preparation to happen. Also, we can use this to go around looking at all those hidden time bombs in the Internet and fix them. Okay, Michael, how much are you talking about Mythos?

42:53Is this good news? Is this bad news? Is this the changing way that the world is going to go? Well, I would say it's complicated news, right? Because it depends what you do with it, right? And putting it in context, right? MythThoughts is a substantially more powerful AI model than the previous ones. But even the previous one, which for Entropic was Opus 4.6, and now they've released 4.7, is already capable of a lot of the same capabilities, right? Going through a code, finding vulnerabilities there, and then executing those exploits to get access. OpenAI released a similar model. There's a very rapid advancing, we should probably use the term arms race here, because every AI that is available is becoming available to not just the defending side.

43:46What was discussed about we can go over and find all the time bombs on the Internet, that's great, but there's a lot of them. And attackers have that too. And even if they don't have Mythos, which is currently gated, right, they're only making it accessible to certain cybersecurity companies, certain organizations, which I think is a responsible approach there. But we know that open source models are trailing and gaining similar functionality within months after kind of one of the frontier models. So we should assume that people, cyber criminal organizations will have access to that technology soon enough.

44:22And does it just sort of supercharges? There's always been an arms race, hasn't there, between people like you and the criminals? And I remember a few months ago for a different program I work on, Moneybox, I was talking to the pensions regulator about how they use AI. It seeks out pension scams and then it informs them and they can go and tackle them. But of course, then you've also got the scammers using AI potentially to create far more compelling pension scams. I mean, does it does it all sort of even out or could we see a significant change in the kind of the sophistication of fraud? Well, the first step that happens is you have the bad actors using it because and we're actually seeing it in retail.

45:07Right. I'll give you the quickest example. not elaborate kind of cyber crime organization but just normal people they order something they want to return it but they actually earn like or actually don't they don't want to return it they want to keep it so you order a pair of shoes and then previously you had to contact the retailer and say well there's something wrong with them but there's nothing wrong with them so you can't claim that now you take a picture of those shoes ask ai to make some hole in them and then you upload it and there's some ai on the retailer side that reviews the picture says yep shoes are bad we'll just refund you.

45:40And it's so much easier to do. And we're starting to see so many of these scams, right? Sort of lowers the barrier for somebody not sophisticated to become substantially more sophisticated. And when we look at all of the attacks that we monitor, right? And we review something like half a trillion dollars worth of transactions per year. So it's a big number, right? And it's very global across a lot of countries, no lot of verticals. And now over 80 % of all attacks are done by AI. It used to be all humans once, and then every new model and every new capability shifts it to more and more AI. The volumes grow up, the level of sophistication goes up.

46:20But at the same time, we have better models, our customers kind of deploy AI in their systems. So it's an ongoing arms race. I think the one thing that changes, and it is harder for people short term is you have to respond faster. Right. You had the stat from the previous show of it took two years from a vulnerability to being discovered to a vulnerability being actually used. And now it's taking 24 hours and soon it's going to take a couple hours, which means everybody has to be constantly educated on the latest versions and the latest capabilities and deploying, I would say, kind of lying in on technologies that can do it at a massive, massive scale.

47:03Michael, fascinating hearing how it's developing, how you're seeing it. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Shall we have a bit of a screeching gear change now and talk about this?

47:18It's not one of those theme songs that gets you dancing, is it? But it's evocative. Bridgerton, of course. The latest season was released last month. It is continuing to drive people's love of Regency romance, picturesque countryside, massive dresses and not just ours, but globally as well. Netflix claims that the period drama has boosted the UK economy by 275 million quid over five years. It certainly has had an impact on the wedding industry. Last year, Pinterest said that searches for Bridgerton weddings rose by 257 percent. And someone who's seeing that firsthand is Lavinia Stuart Brown, a luxury wedding and party planner.

48:00She's been telling me more couples are choosing to spend their money, saying I do, in England's grand stately homes and especially couples from the US. It's not necessarily people coming from America that want to get married here. It's also Americans that live already in the UK that decide that they want to get married here instead of going back home to their weddings. And then they can just fly everyone over for the occasion. You think those series like Bridgerton, like Downton Abbey, like The Crown, maybe to blame for it? What's a blame? To thank, I suppose, in your industry? Well, yes, I was going to say definitely to thank.

48:34I've noticed that quite a big increase in American couples wanting to get married, specifically in the Cotswolds, I would say. TV programmes like that, of course, you know, it's that kind of, it's the traditional English element of it that attracts them over here. Now, the Times reported spikes in searches for Bridgerton weddings and that Pinterest has seen searches for the whole Bridgerton theme up by more than 250%. So is it just US couples seeking this out or are some British couples also thinking, do you know what, I fancy a really, really massive dress? um yeah of course there's both um i i do have quite a mixed clientele uh but the americans do love it because i think as well if they're going to be getting a lot of their family and friends to fly over for the occasion they want it to have that british wow factor are they having like the full the full bridgerton aesthetic or do they just want to have it in a you know beautiful english setting with you know a nice english breakfast for you know in the morning and you know that kind of thing yeah I mean in my personal experience no I'm not getting anyone that comes to me and says I want a full Bridgerton themed wedding um it's more little little bits of of the kind of the traditional English element that they want bits and bobs of that that English charm that they really want to kind of sing through to their guests and what kind of budgets do they have Budgets, in my experience, range from probably, I would say, around 70 ,000 upwards.

50:08I know you're a luxury wedding and party planner, but 70 grand upwards. I know, I know. We're also talking about multiple days as well. It's rarely just one day, these celebrations. They're normally either a Friday and a Saturday or a Saturday and a Sunday or all three, which obviously then increases the budget even more. But they're never just a one day, you know, especially if you've got lots of people flying over from the States. You know, you want them to have like a whole weekend where they can experience that quintessential English, you know, whether it's the countryside or whether it's kind of London, whatever they're going for, you want them to experience it and feel like they've actually come over for a reason.

50:49So these American couples are putting on quite a show for their guests. Is that pushing up the price for British couples who also fancy a wedding in the Cotswolds? Generally, I think prices have gone up anyway. I don't think it's necessarily because of the Americans coming over. I would say, though, that with something like the Cotswolds, obviously, it's at its peak at the moment because you've got, you know, Jeremy Clarkson, you've got Soho Farmhouse, you've got Dalesford, you've got all of those attractions there. You know, they're recommending that all of their guests make the most of these places and see all of these things because they know that they're going to have a lovely time visiting them.

51:26Prices have gone up kind of industry wide. What's the most ridiculous or outrageous or extravagant thing that a bridezilla or a groomzilla or a mother-in-lawzilla has ever asked you for? I actually got asked by a couple a couple of years ago whether I could get two elephants to greet the guests on arrival. And obviously I said, you know, my job is to try to make the impossible possible. Of course, that's the whole reason why people get a wedding planner. But on this occasion, I did say, I can't do that for you. And I don't necessarily think that is right. But what we did do was we found two elephants that were kind of robot elephants, I should say, that were at the front of the greeting, you know, greeting the guests.

52:18So we did do that instead. I'm off to tell my husband that our wedding was actually very reasonable. Lavinia Stewart-Brown, thank you so much for joining us. No, no problem. Thank you very much for having me. Robot elephants. Maybe this is going to be the new wedding trend. Who knows? That was Lavinia Stewart-Brown, the luxury wedding and party planner. Shanti listening to that and I imagine raising an eyebrow at the robot elephants or even the request for the real elephants. But do we see trends that kind of come across in television, that come across in new series, then translating, then having that positive economic impact?

52:56Well, I mean, product placement in movies and programs is huge because it encourages behavior, you know, whether it's the Lotus Island one making everyone want to visit Hawaii. So it's massive and it's all about influence. I think a lot of it's driven by social media and the desire to have pretty pictures. Very, very true. And in fact, product placement, I saw a lot of skittles in the Project Hail Mary movie when I went to see it last week, which I thought was an unusual product placement. Thank you very much. Thank you to Shanti Kellerman, co-chief investment officer at Seven Investment Management.

53:30Thank you again, as always, to Michael Reitblatt, Chief Executive and founder of the Global Fraud Prevention Platform, Forta. Absolute pleasure to have your company this morning. Let's just do a few more of your messages on weddings. This person says, just remember, the couple are probably forking out upwards of 30 grand to celebrate their big day. If you get an invite, that means you're very special to them and they want to have you there to share the experience. Thank you for that. Jane in Oxford says my family members that got married all asked for cash and had much less ostentatious the less ostentatious the wedding the longer the marriage lasts that's it for Wake Up To Money Wake Up To Money from BBC 5 Live That's it from Wake Up To Money don't forget to subscribe on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts and when you do we'd love it if you'd leave us a review you can also contact us anytime on social media using the hashtag Wake Up To Money

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