n UK retailer Waitrose is set to expand overseas, after signing a licensing deal with Dubai-based Spinneys. The first store is to open in Dubai in April, with an agreement to open more than 20 sites in the United Arab Emirates by 2010.

n Staff at Greggs’ Battlefield Road bakery in Glasgow were left badly shaken but uninjured following a robbery by a man armed with a knife, according to Strathclyde police. The suspect, in his mid-30s, fled after being handed a three-figure sum of money.

n Marks & Spencer is to open a new store in Leeds, which will feature a food hall, with a bakery, a café and a deli selling a selection of food, snacks and hot drinks. The 150,000sq ft store will be at the heart of an £800m leisure development, Eastgate Quarters.

n Somerfield grocery chain, part-owned by property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, is up for sale and could change hands for as much as £2.5bn (E3.4bn) in an auction being conducted by Citigroup, according to Private Equity News.

n Former 1968 president of the London Region of the National Association of Master Bakers (NA), Roy Edwards, has died at the age of 87. His funeral is on Wednesday 30 January at 11.30am at Tunbridge Wells crematorium. Mourners are requested not to send flowers, nor to wear black to the funeral, intended as a celebration of Roy’s life. Any donations can be sent to the Bakers’ Benevolent Society, of which Roy was a trustee.