Toast

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Toast podcast series image

BBC Radio 4 LW

Sliced Bread Presents: Toast - Mothercare's UK Stores

Toast series image

Toast - Mothercare's UK Stores

Sliced Bread

BBC Radio 4 - Sliced Bread, Toast - Mothercare's UK Stores

Why did Mothercare have to close all of their UK stores?

Why did Mothercare have to close all of their UK stores? Sean Farrington looks into it with help from expert guests and the entrepreneur, Sam White.

Why did Mothercare have to close all of their UK stores?

Sean Farrington discovers what happened to the baby goods retailer which once dominated the high street.  

Alongside him, analysing Mothercare's fortunes, is the entrepreneur, Sam White.

The pair hear from Tim Curtis who once ran Mothercare's website, catalogue and home delivery service; Amena Khan, a loyal Mothercare customer and Richard Lim, CEO of Retail Economics. 

They chart the highs and the lows and learn how Mothercare continues to trade today, albeit in a different form. 

Produced by Jon Douglas and Shanaye Mainoo-Magnone. Toast is a BBC Audio North production for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

You can email the programme at toast@bbc.co.uk

Feel free to suggest topics which could be covered in future episodes.

Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in May. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds.

Sliced Bread Presents

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Sliced Bread podcast series image

Documentaries

Podcasts

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Sliced Bread series image

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast.

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast. Sean Farrington examines the spectacular failures of wonder products and businesses which had promised so much.

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up... Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers.    

In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist, Sean Farrington, examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt?  

Some of the world's most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world's most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? 

Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? 

The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand's fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions.  

From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. 

Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in February. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds.

Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Sliced Bread Presents

Toast - Mothercare's UK Stores

Genres

Series

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4