Toast

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Sliced Bread Presents: Toast - Green Shield Stamps

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Toast - Green Shield Stamps

Sliced Bread

BBC Radio 4 - Sliced Bread, Toast - Green Shield Stamps

Green Shield Stamps could be traded in for 'free' gifts so why did consumers abandon them?

Green Shield Stamps could be traded in for 'free' gifts so why did consumers abandon them? Sean Farrington and expert guests examine the rise and fall of the popular loyalty scheme

Green Shield Stamps could be traded in for 'free' gifts so why did consumers abandon them? 

Sean Farrington examines their rise and fall and discovers how they spawned a famous retail chain which is still trading. 

The stamps were the centrepiece of an early form of loyalty scheme and were collected by tens of millions of people across the UK. 

They were given out by shops with every purchase and could be exchanged for a wide range of household goods and luxury items from handbags to vacuum cleaners and even cars.   

The BBC Business journalist, Sean Farrington, speaks to expert guests including:

Sir John Timpson - chairman of the retail services provider, Timpson, who dedicated a chapter of his book on 'High Street Heroes' to the Green Shield Stamp founder, Richard Tompkins. 

Professor Leigh Sparks - Professor of Retail Studies at the University of Stirling.

Alongside them, analysing the stamps' fortunes is the entrepreneur, Sam White.

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

This episode was produced by Jon Douglas.

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.

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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.

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