Week ending 21 August 2026

July’s inflation and labour market figures, and an ASA ruling on customer testimonials, with our read on what each means for a founder-led brand.

Inflation rises to 2.9% as the energy cap increase lands

The July rise is concentrated in a cost line founders can see in their own overheads, and the quieter half of the release matters just as much.

The Consumer Prices Index rose 2.9% in the 12 months to July, up from 2.6% in June, in figures released by the ONS on 19 August. It is the first increase in the annual rate since March, and the source is not spread across the basket: the largest upward contribution came from housing and household services, where the annual rate jumped from 2.7% to 4.1% as Ofgem’s 13% rise in the energy price cap took effect on 1 July. Gas prices rose 14.7% in the month, the largest monthly increase since October 2022, and electricity rose 3.6%. On the month, CPI rose 0.3%.

Since we covered June’s figures in the 24 July edition the direction has reversed, but the detail is steadier than the headline. Core inflation, which strips out energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, was unchanged at 2.6%. A cap-driven jump in regulated energy prices is a different thing from broad reacceleration: it arrives on a known date, at a known size, and it does not by itself say demand is overheating. That distinction matters for the rate path, and core holding steady is the number the Bank will be reading; the release itself settles nothing either way.

For a founder the practical reading is closer to home. The same cap rise that moved the index is now arriving in business energy contracts, warehouse and cold-chain costs and suppliers’ pricing conversations, and it will sit there through the autumn. A forecast built on spring’s cost base is already out of date. The useful exercise is specific: reprice the energy-exposed lines in your cost plan, ask which suppliers will pass their own increases through, and know how much of that your margin absorbs before your prices have to respond.

Questions worth revisiting

• Has your autumn forecast already absorbed the July energy rise, or is it still running on spring’s cost base?

If the honest answer is that the plan predates the cap change, a Discovery Call is a sensible place to start.

Sources: Office for National Statistics, Consumer price inflation, UK: July 2026, 19 August 2026; Ofgem, Changes to energy price cap between 1 July and 30 September 2026

Vacancies fall to 707,000 as the hiring market keeps loosening

The market has quietly moved in favour of anyone still hiring, and the same figures explain why pay pressure keeps fading.

The unemployment rate was 4.9% in April to June, up from 4.7% a year earlier, in the ONS labour market overview released on 18 August. Vacancies, the standing count of unfilled roles employers are actively recruiting for, fell by 6,000 to 707,000 in the three months to July, the lowest outside the pandemic period since late 2014, and the early estimate of payrolled employees for July, at 30.3 million, was down 13,000 on the month and 94,000 on the year. Pay told the same story from the other side: annual growth in regular pay was 3.5% in April to June, worth 0.7% in real terms. One caveat travels with the release: the ONS flags its Labour Force Survey as less reliable than usual, partly because of a data collection problem in May and June, and advises reading it alongside payroll data.

We covered the labour market on 24 July, and this release deepens the loosening rather than changing it. The line that matters most for a founder is what it does to a deferred hire. A year ago the strong candidate was scarce and the salary expectation was climbing; today candidates are more available and pay growth is easing. The role you shelved because the numbers did not work may work now, at a different salary, with a stronger field to choose from. Easing pay also feeds the inflation story above: fading wage pressure is one reason July’s rise reads as an energy event rather than a broad one.

The discipline is to re-run the case rather than assume it. A hiring decision is a numbers decision: the true cost of the role, the contribution it has to earn, and the point in the cash flow year it can be afforded. A loosening market changes the inputs; it does not remove the calculation.

Questions worth revisiting

• Is there a hire you shelved a year ago whose case now deserves re-running?
• Does your payroll budget still reflect the market you are hiring in, or the one you set it in?

Phoenix can help you build the numbers behind a hiring decision, from fully loaded cost to the margin the role has to earn.

Source: Office for National Statistics, Labour market overview, UK: August 2026, 18 August 2026

ASA upholds ruling against The Turmeric Co over blurred testimonials

Pointing readers to a review platform does not launder a claim your own copy could not make, and a ruling published this month closes the workaround.

The ASA upheld a complaint against Innate-Essence Ltd, the company behind The Turmeric Co, over customer testimonials presented on its website with health-related wording blurred out, beside the heading “Blurry here. Crystal clear on Trustpilot. Regulations mean we can’t show everything on this page, but you can read the lot over there”. The ruling was published on 5 August and reached the trade press this week. The ASA found the blurring “did not remove the overall meaning of the testimonials”, with consumers “effectively invited to fill in the omitted wording from the context of each statement”; the testimonials were likely to be understood as claims that the shots could prevent, treat or cure human disease, claims the CAP Code prohibits for foods.

The company told the trade press it is engaging constructively with the ASA, has removed the advertising concerned and is reviewing its processes. The wider point stands whoever the brand is: a testimonial a business republishes is an advertising claim that business is making, and neither redaction nor a signpost to an independent review platform changes what a reader is being invited to understand. Copy that draws attention to what has been hidden invites the reader to complete it, and that inference is the substance of the finding.

For supplement and functional-food founders the action is an audit. Hold every testimonial on your site, in your ads and in the reviews you amplify to the same standard as your own product copy: if you could not make the claim, you cannot host it. That includes user-generated content you reshare, influencer posts you repost and review widgets you embed. The reader’s inference is what counts, not the words you avoided printing.

Questions worth revisiting

• Would every testimonial on your site pass the same claims bar as your own copy?

Sources: Food Manufacture, The Turmeric Co. faces ASA ruling over blurred health claims, 17 August 2026; The Grocer, The Turmeric Co censured over republished third-party health claims, August 2026

A start list is a plan, not a result

UTMB race week opens in Chamonix on Monday. What shows by Friday night was decided in the months nobody watched.

The 23rd edition of HOKA UTMB Mont-Blanc runs from 24 to 30 August: eight races starting in turn from Chamonix, Courmayeur, Martigny-Combe and Orsières, with around 10,000 runners, around 60% of them international. The flagship UTMB itself, 174 kilometres around Mont Blanc with about 9,900 metres of climbing, starts on Friday 28 August at 17:45 and runs through the night. The elite fields are set: Kilian Jornet of Spain, a four-time winner, returns for the first time since his 2022 victory; New Zealand’s Ruth Croft defends the women’s title; and Courtney Dauwalter, three times a winner here, is entered again.

The list is also notable for who is not on it. Tom Evans of the UK, last year’s men’s winner, ruled himself out after his race at the Hardrock 100 in July ended early, so the men’s field is without its defending champion. That is the honest half of a start list: it is a plan, and a year of preparation does not always survive to the start line. For everyone who does stand in Chamonix on Friday, most of the result is already written. The fitness that shows on the first climb was built in the unwatched months between last autumn and now; race week only reveals it.

Founder-led businesses run the same pattern. A launch, a fundraise, a January price change: each is a start list, a statement of intent that says nothing yet about readiness. The outcome is decided by the base built before the event, the cash buffer in place before the launch, the numbers tidied before the diligence, the cost model tested before the price moves. Phoenix works with founders on that preparation layer, the numbers that say whether you are ready before the day that tells everyone. Race week opens three days after this edition lands; what the unwatched months have produced will show soon enough.

Sources: HOKA UTMB Mont-Blanc, UTMB race page, montblanc.utmb.world; Run Ultra, HOKA UTMB Mont-Blanc 2026: Elite Start List Announced, August 2026; RUN247, Defending champ Tom Evans rules himself out of UTMB, August 2026