Breakfast Briefing: Retail news on Tesco, John Lewis and House of Fraser

Tesco starts scheme to curb food waste

Tesco is initiating a scheme which could hand tens of thousands of tonnes of excess food from its stores to local charities as the grocer faces increasing pressure to address wastage. A new partnership with food redistribution charity FareShare will link Tesco store managers with local charities to hand over unwanted food several times a week. The Guardian reported the scheme has already been tested at over 100 stores in Ireland and will go into an initial 10 stores in the UK including outlets in Glasgow, Belfast, Merseyside and London.

John Lewis ends audit partnership with PwC

John Lewis has dumped PricewaterhouseCoopers as its auditor for the last 20 years, The Guardian reported. The retailer ended its partnership with PwC as it faces investigation by accounting watchdog Financial Reporting Council for its auditing of Tesco in the wake of a £263m accounting scandal.

Sources say the decision by the chain for the replacement was unrelated to the Tesco debacle and will result in KPMG taking over at the annual meeting in 2016.

House of Fraser adds unitards to sports clothing range

House of Fraser has expanded its collection of sporty clothing for Muslim women. The high street retailer is now stocking black unitards for adults and black body suits that come with a separate black hijab for children. The Daily Mail reported the new items of clothing, which are produced by the company Shorso UK are designed to be worn for swimming and aerobics. The launch of the new £36 unitards at House of Fraser comes two months after they started selling sports hijabs that are designed for women to wear while doing exercise.