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Episode details

Radio 4,10 Sep 2018,45 mins

Building skills, Bookshop takeover, New chocolate

You and Yours

Available for over a year

Britain's building industry is facing a challenge in recruiting enough skilled workers. Whether it's plasterers, bricklayers or glaziers, many builders are struggling to find the staff they need to complete projects. Some describe watching their workers getting older, with little sign of younger recruits to take their place. The Construction Industry Training Board tells You & Yours that in the next five years, the sector will need to find 160,000 new workers. We ask where it will find them. Foyles is one of the UK's most celebrated bookshops. Founded in 1903, the family-owned flagship store in central London has become an institution. So the news that the company and its seven shops have been taken over by its giant rival, Waterstones, feels really significant to people working in the industry. Waterstones says it is committed to ensuring Foyles has a future as bright as its past. What does the takeover say about the state of Britain's independent bookshop sector? Can small privately-owned shops survive and compete against online giants such as Amazon? We speak to Waterstones' managing director, James Daunt. Is our taste in chocolate changing? In recent years, lots of new kinds of chocolate have appeared on the market, with recipes boasting higher levels of cocoa. Among others, the luxury brand Hotel Chocolat promises more cocoa and less sugar. Now Cadbury is launching a new milk chocolate containing much more cocoa than its traditional and popular Dairy Milk. The company's American owner, Mondelez, says it wants to bring a new high-cocoa chocolate to the British mainstream market. We ask an expert for her review of this new chocolate and examine how our tastes are changing. Producer: Jonathan Hallewell Presenter: Winifred Robinson.

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