Business In Brief

Aug 21 2008 Daily Record

A STYLIST whose innovative hairbrush was rejected in the Dragon's Den has landed a lucrative contract with Boots.

The high street chain will stock the Tangle Teezer at 600 stores from September 1, a year after the BBC2 gurus rejected the product.

Shaun Pulfrey, 47, a hairdresser from south London, designed the £9.99 device to smooth knotted hair easily.

Sales have taken off at hair salon chains and on the internet and helped push turnover to £800,000, giving Pulfrey a £200,000 profit.

THE makers of packaging for jaffa cakes and fruit pastilles yesterday said they were on course to improve profits, despite the pressure of rising costs.

Robinson, who employ 400 staff, also make packaging for Gillette shaving foam.

The firm showed a £20,000 profit after tax in the six months to June 30 compared with an underlying £151,000 loss last year, after cutting manufacturing expenses and passing on the increased costs.

Robinson, founded in1839, were family-owned before floating in 2004.

ONLINE grocer Ocado are to list the use-by dates of all items on their website in bid to allay customers' fears that home deliveries are not as fresh as supermarket goods.

Chief executive Tim Steiner said: "Ocado customers will see product life information just as in a store.

"A further benefit is that customers will find that meal planning becomes much easier.

"They will know, at the point of ordering, exactly what they can use at various points throughout the week."

PAWNBROKER H&T reported a 79 per cent jump in half-year profits yesterday after opening new stores and benefited from higher gold prices.

Chief executive John Nichols described the results as excellent.

But he said they would be wrong to assume the economic slump was behind the improvement to £5.5million in the six months to June 30.

He added: "This strong performance has been the result of a successful overall strategy, along with investment in new stores."

A KUWAITI royal is joining Aberdeen's Sovereign Oilfield Group as a non-executive director of the company.

Sovereign chief executive Graham Burgess said 25-year-old Sheikh Sabah Ali Fahad Al Salem Al Sabah's knowledge, experience and connections would strengthen their capabilities in key Middle East and international markets.

He added the move would expand opportunities to develop internationally.

The company provide a range of services to the oil and gas industry.