Semua Kabar

Prices of toys, car parts and major appliances jumped in the US last month, but the overall impact of Donald Trump’s new tariffs on consumers remained relatively muted.

Prices were up 2.4% in May compared with a year ago, up from a rate of 2.3% in April, the latest official inflation figures showed.

Housing and grocery prices continued to rise, but those increases were offset by declines in other areas, such as petrol, airfares and clothing.

The monthly report from the Labor Department is being closely watched to see how Trump’s decision to raise taxes on imports plays out across the world’s largest economy.

Since re-entering the White House in January, Trump has imposed new tariffs on imports from around the world, putting in place a 10% tariff on most items, while targeting goods from some countries and sectors with even higher duties.

Economists have warned that the new levies will raise costs for companies, and lead to higher prices for households, risking the return of an inflation problem that appeared to be subsiding.

The White House, which put some of its most aggressive plans on hold to allow for talks, has rejected those forecasts. Officials have argued that companies in other countries will shoulder the burden of the new costs, while the tariffs benefit American producers and the wider economy.

For now, the consumer price report indicated that the impact on households remained relatively limited, primarily hitting items such as appliances, where the US depends heavily on China for supply.

Prices of major appliances jumped 4.3% over the month, while toys rose 2.2%, according to the report.

Overall, however, prices rose just 0.1% between April and May, after rising 0.2% a month earlier.

Analysts said they expected it would take time for the tariffs to work their way into the data, as companies work through their stock of products brought in before the tariffs were in place.

“Today’s below forecast inflation print is reassuring – but only to an extent,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.

“Tariff-driven price increases may not feed through to the CPI data for a few more months yet, so it is far too premature to assume that the price shock will not materialise.”

The US central bank, the Federal Reserve, wants to see an inflation rate of about 2%.

It hiked interest rates dramatically starting in 2022 in an attempt to get then-rapidly rising prices back under control, and has made only limited cuts since then, even as the issue has moderated.

On Wednesday, Trump revived his call for the Fed to borrowing costs, arguing that inflation problems have faded.

But analysts said the Fed was likely to remain hesitant, given the uncertainty about the path ahead.

“The Fed will be reactionary and want to see how inflation does this summer when the tariffs hit inflation harder,” said Ryan Sweet of Oxford Economics.

Increasing costs are presenting financial challenges and its trips are on hold, the charity says.

A charity that helps parents with young babies says it is itself “massively feeling the pinch”.

The BBC understands up to 100 of the brand’s 825 UK stores could close as the new owners shake up the business.

The strength of the economy affects things like pay rises and how much tax the government can raise to pay for services.

The world’s two biggest economies have agreed in principle a framework for de-escalating trade tensions.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

Head into the basement of any bustling mall in Singapore and the chances are you will smell the sweetness of fresh, buttery baked goods.

Long lines of people swarm the counters of Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Singaporean bakeries – tray and tongs in hand, after picking out cream rolls and milk breads or filled croissants and fruity pastries from crowded display cabinets.

For Paris Baguette, its inspiration is clearly in the name, the outlets are also decorated with the colours of the tricolour, the signage shows the Eiffel Tower and the ambience seems to be aiming for something close to the charm of a Parisian cafe.

But it is 100% Korean.

“I wouldn’t limit our bread to everything from France. We are an international brand,” says Jin-soo Hur, president and chief executive of SPC Group, which owns Paris Baguette.

“Like croissants, could you say this is a European product? I would say it’s a universal product.”

SPC traces its roots back to a small family-owned bakery shop that opened 80 years ago.

It is now a key player in mass producing bread and pastries in South Korea, employing 20,000 people across all its brands. SPC says its sales hit $5.6bn (£4.26bn) last year.

In 1988, Paris Baguette was born becoming the first Korean bakery brand to open an international store in China, which continues to be a big market.

Today it has 4,000 stores across 14 countries including in Asia, Europe and the US.

Paris Baguette has big overseas expansion plans, setting a target of more than 1,000 new branches internationally by 2030 – many of them in the US.

It’s investing in a factory in Texas which will become its largest overseas production facility when it is completed in 2027, supplying the US, Canada and Latin America.

For Mr Hur, capturing the American market is a priority because it would mean Paris Baguette has succeeded internationally.

Sport is central to Paris Baguette’s strategy through a partnership with English Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur.

It had a similar deal with France’s Paris St Germain for two seasons, providing fans with its baked products and desserts on match days of home games.

“I think food is culture. Sports brings a lot of people into the stadium, and there’s always good vibes in London,” said Mr Hur.

The captain of South Korea’s national team was also the captain of Spurs. Son Heung-min led his team to victory in the Europa League last month, ending the club’s 17-year wait for a trophy.

It’s not about a Korean leading Spurs for Mr Hur though.

Tottenham is a “top club and Paris Baguette wants to be best in class too,” he says.

Workers don’t like to wake up early to knead dough by hand, Mr Hur says softly.

He credits his company’s system of delivering frozen dough to franchises around the world for improving efficiency and extending shelf life.

Asia has a strong heritage of baked goods, but with rapid urbanisation, and changing lifestyles demand for on-the-go convenience foods is growing steadily.

Bakeries across the region already offer a huge variety of items.

Staples like pain au chocolat and sandwiches are abundant, but they are also known for Asian-inspired flavours – be it pandan, durian, salted egg, red bean or matcha-filled croissants and pastries.

Paris Baguette is responding to the demand through a halal-certified plant in Malaysia, to supply customers in South East Asia and the Middle East.

With the fascination around Korean culture globally, experts say there could be an opportunity for Asian bakeries to see even more success.

Korean and Japanese culture is so popular around the world now that maybe they’re seeing things on their screen, and then they’re willing to try it as well, said Saverio Busato, a pastry and bakery chef at the Culinary Institute of America in Singapore.

“I just came back from a trip to Italy and I was quite surprised to see a lot of Asian bakery and pastry shops in Italy and I was super happy.

To see the local people, the Italian people, that they were kind of exploring.”

But can frozen dough produce the same quality of goods as an artisanal bakery?

I put Chef Busato to a blind taste test. He pulls apart a croissant made with frozen dough (although he doesn’t know it), inspecting the elasticity and smelling it.

“This is quite bad. There is no honeycomb inside, it’s totally hollow. The lamination doesn’t have much strength because the internal part collapses. There is no butter profile. It’s gluey and dense. There is no smell,” he tells me.

Chef Busato acknowledges that it isn’t practical to seek artisanal standards if you’re mass-producing baked goods, and so big players will have to rely on frozen dough.

What about the traditional Asian baked goods though? Chef Busato on tasting a Korean milk bread, a fluffy white bread filled with cream, said he thinks it would do well in Europe.

“It’s fantastic. It’s very good. The smell of milk is coming over is nice. It’s fluffy. It’s refreshing… Reminds me of some kind of snack when I was younger that I was bringing to school.”

The cost-of-living crisis is a major challenge for Paris Baguette – not least because of the US inflation rate as it seeks to push into the American market. A lot of companies are having to change their business because it’s not profitable for them, Mr Hur says.

One of Paris Baguette’s biggest competitors globally – Pret A Manger – has had to experiment with subscription services and expand dine-in options after Covid pushed the sandwich and coffee chain into loss, and it was forced to close dozens of outlets and cut more than 3,000 jobs.

The global economic environment weighs on Mr Hur too but he insists profit is not his only goal. “If we are only trying to make profit, we’ll just stay in Korea,” he says.

“We want to change the bread culture around the world. I want to find a way to keep opening up a lot of bakeries. It is good for my country, and good for people.”

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

Disney and Universal are suing artificial intelligence (AI) firm Midjourney over its image generator, which the Hollywood giants allege is a “bottomless pit of plagiarism”.

The two studios claim Midjourney’s tool makes “innumerable” copies of characters including Darth Vader from Star Wars, Frozen’s Elsa, and the Minions from Despicable Me.

It is part of the entertainment industry’s ongoing love-hate relationship with AI. Many studios want to make use of the technology but are concerned that their creations could be stolen.

Midjourney’s image generator makes images from typed requests or prompts.

In the lawsuit filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, the studios gave examples of Midjourney-generated images that included Disney characters such as Star Wars’ Yoda and Marvel’s Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk and Iron Man.

Disney’s chief legal officer Horacio Gutierrez said the firm was “optimistic” about how AI “can be used responsibly as a tool to further human creativity”.

“But piracy is piracy, and the fact that it’s done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing,” he said.

In the complaint, Disney and Universal said Midjourney made $300m (£221m) last year alone and is planning a “soon-to-be-released video service”.

Syracuse University law professor Shubha Ghosh said: “A lot of the images that Midjourney produces just seem to be copies of copyright characters that might be in new locations or with a new background.”

“It doesn’t seem like they’re being transformed in a creative or imaginative way.”

He added that there is a recognition in copyright law that creativity can build on other works as long as it adds something new.

Randy McCarthy, head of the IP Law Group at US law firm Hall Estill said: “No litigation is ever a slam dunk, and that is true for Disney and Universal in this case.”

“There are several issues such as terms of service provisions by Midjourney, and basic fair use analysis, that will need to be sorted out by the court before we can determine the likely outcome,” he added.

Midjourney did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.

On its website, the San Francisco-based startup says it has a “small self-funded team” with less than a dozen full-time staffers.

It refers to itself as “an independent research lab.”

The firm is run by David Holz, who previously founded a hardware sensor firm called Leap Motion.

Midjourney lists former Github chief executive Nat Friedman and Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, among its advisors.

Hollywood sees both potential upsides and downsides to AI.

It was only two years ago that actors and writers shut down the entertainment industry hub with strikes demanding protections against new technology.

But now AI is being used more in TV, films and video games.

Two movies competing at the Oscars used AI to alter voices: Emilia Perez and The Brutalist.

The technology has also been used to de-age actors like Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford.

India can’t grow enough apples to meet demand but farmers are struggling to raise production.

The apps use artificial intelligence to create fake nude images of people without their consent.

The 131cm-high figurine was sold at the Yongle International Auction in Beijing.

The world’s two biggest economies have agreed in principle a framework for de-escalating trade tensions.

Asian bakeries are seeing success at home and abroad by bringing global flavours to traditional French pastries.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

A human-sized Labubu doll was sold this week for a record 1.08m yuan ($150,324; £110,465), according to a Chinese auction house.

The 131cm (4ft 4in) figurine was sold at the Yongle International Auction in Beijing. The auctioneer said it was now the most expensive toy of its kind in the world.

Labubu dolls are quirky monster characters created a decade ago by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung, which have increased in popularity in recent years after a number of celebrity endorsements.

Labubu dolls, sold by Chinese toy company Pop Mart, usually cost around 50 yuan ($6.95; £5.12).

This week’s auction was dedicated entirely to Labubu.

Forty eight items were put on sale with around 200 people in attendance.

The auction house said it raised a total of 3.37m yuan.

The figurines have sparked a global buying frenzy after frequently appearing in social media posts by Lisa from the K-pop group Blackpink.

The soft toys became a viral TikTok trend after being worn by other celebrities including Rihanna and Dua Lipa.

Former England football captain David Beckham also posted a photo on Instagram of a Labubu attached to his bag.

Earlier this year, Pop Mart pulled the dolls from all UK stores following reports of customers fighting over them.

The Chinese retailer often sells the collectable toys in mystery “blind boxes”.

These items are popular with customers who only find out the design of the figurine once they have opened the packaging.

The popularity of Labubu toys has contributed to the success of Pop Mart.

The firm’s revenue was 13bn yuan for 2024, more than double the figure seen the previous year.

It opened new stores in five countries including Italy and Spain last year.

Plans show Lego figures will feature in towers at the new entrance.

The Earl of Devon says the money will go towards restoring parts of the castle.

The diamond-encrusted tiara – expected to fetch about £400,000 – reaches nearly £890,000.

The jewellery was owned by Nancy Astor, the first woman to take a seat in Parliament.

The J69 plate and Peugeot Ion were listed at auction with a starting price of £100,000.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has unveiled the contents of the UK’s first multi-year spending review since 2021.

The review sets the day-to-day budgets of government departments over the next three years, used to pay staff and deliver public services.

It also sets their investment budgets until the end of the decade, to pay for new infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, and military kit.

Here is a summary of the key points.

Salisbury MP John Glen asked the chancellor for an update, only to be told it was the Health Secretary’s decision.

The PM and chancellor badged their Spending Review as start of a new chapter but the economic backdrop is inescapable.

The big bet for the government remains on economic growth – finding it and sustaining it.

Some departments, including the Home Office and Foreign Office, have lost out in the government’s Spending Review.

SNP say Scotland has been “short changed” but the chancellor claims it is the largest settlement since devolution.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

Rachel Reeves’s key choice in this Spending Review is to prioritise long-term investment over day-to-day spending.

Within that, some cash will be routed to the Midlands and the North of England rather than London.

And against tight limits on day-to-day spending, the chancellor chose to funnel funding towards health.

These are important strategic reprioritisations. The key judgements are longer term.

You will not be riding on these railways, or getting energy from new nuclear plants in this Parliament. It will take a few years to see the inside of a newly-subsidised social house. There are no quick fixes to many years of under-investment.

For Reeves this was the culmination of a planned strategy from the important technical changes she made to her borrowing rules at last year’s Budget.

The existence of this extra £113bn capital spending arises from that decision, and it is borrowed money.

All of this has added to the pressure on day-to-day spending in the final years of the Parliament.

Some of those spending settlements look very tight indeed set against growing expectations and demands in education and local councils.

A return to a reasonable rate of economic growth is not just the aim of these plans, it is required to make them credibly add up in later years.

The pattern of spending appears to suggest a hope or an expectation that the numbers will be replenished later, assuming that growth will pick up.

Achieving that will require not just effective and efficient government spending on these major long-term projects, but sufficient confidence and vision to get the private sector to pour its money into similar plans.

So this will not instantly transform the country, the state of roads, hospitals and schools, or the provision of services within them. But with a still healthy parliamentary majority, the chancellor has some time.

There is a pathway here to a more balanced, sustainably-growing economy. Indeed, faster growth will be needed to make the Budget numbers add up.

Acorn says its project will safeguard about 18,000 jobs that would have been lost, including jobs at Grangemouth.

The Scottish government says wealthier pensioners will be made aware of the benefits of not accepting the money.

The Scottish government says it was not consulted on the chancellor’s new plan that could leave some Scots pensioners worse off than those in England and Wales.

The government says every corner of the country will benefit, but research backers call for a long-term plan for science.

This week’s Spending Review may be an opportunity for the UK government show investors its vision

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

All the talk of departmental budgets and fiscal rules may feel somewhat distant from the cost of food shopping and your finances.

The Spending Review is not a Budget in which taxes are changed or a host of new policies announced. But, don’t be fooled, it will have an impact on you and your money.

Here are seven ways you could see a change.

If you work in the public sector your job or your pay could be directly affected.

The defence sector and the NHS are getting a significant amount of government funding. Science and tech will see investment; other areas much less so.

Over the next three years, Home Office funding is down 1.7% a year, the Foreign Office loses 6.9% a year, mainly in aid spending, the Department for Transport loses 5% a year, Environment and Rural Affairs loses 2.7%, and Business and Trade loses 1.8%.

Some of these cuts are tied to specific savings, but it could also mean a squeeze on jobs and wages in those sectors.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has also announced some long-term projects, which will create new jobs in time. For example, giving the go-ahead to the new Sizewell C nuclear plant will create 10,000 direct jobs and thousands more in connected businesses, ministers say.

Any child in England whose parents receive universal credit will be able to claim free school meals from September 2026.

Universal credit is a benefit paid to those on low incomes, many of whom are in work. Currently, a household must earn less than £7,400 a year to qualify for free school meals in England.

All primary school children in London and Wales can currently access free meals. In Scotland, all children in the first five years of primary school are eligible, as well as all children from families receiving the Scottish Child Payment benefit.

Parents in Northern Ireland can apply if they receive certain benefits and are below an income threshold which is approximately double the current England level, at £15,000.

The chancellor promised money for “renewal” projects in 350 communities, such as improvements to parks, youth facilities, swimming pools and libraries.

However, the documents strongly suggest there will be rises in council tax in the future, to improve local authorities’ spending power.

As well as this, local government funding is likely to rise slightly and this affects a number of things such as social care for older people, various local services or the cost of a parking permit. Or, in time, it could be as simple as the cost of a garden waste bin.

In the nations of the UK, several areas of policy are devolved, and that can lead to a complicated funding structure that will need to be analysed.

Reeves said, through the funding formula, the government in Scotland would receive £52bn from 2026 to 2029, there will be £23bn for Wales, and £20bn for Northern Ireland.

In October, the £2 cap on bus fares, covering most bus journeys in England, was raised to £3.

This was due to run until the end of 2025, but now the government says it will last until “at least” March 2027. There are separate bus caps in London and Manchester.

The chancellor also promised plans to develop Northern Powerhouse Rail from Liverpool to Manchester.

The government will also put money towards building and improving tram networks in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and the Midlands.

The Newcastle to Sunderland metro line will also receive an extension, while nearly £1bn will go towards improving train services in the south west of England.

Last winter, the winter fuel payment – which helps cover energy costs during the coldest months – only went to low-income pensioners in receipt of pension credit.

This winter, it will go to all pensioners in England and Wales who have an annual taxable income of £35,000 or less. Separate policies in Scotland and Northern Ireland may now be reconsidered.

Details of the change of policy came on Monday, although how this is paid for will not be clear until the autumn Budget.

The Treasury said it would cost £1.25bn to restore the payment, of either £200 or £300, to millions of pensioner households.

It is quite difficult to get your head around the numbers involved in the mammoth project to build a new nuclear power plant.

A total of £17.8bn of taxpayers’ money has been pledged for the new Sizewell C plant in Suffolk to date.

The Treasury will borrow that money, but the interest on that debt is paid for through household energy bills. The government estimates that will be about £1 a month on a bill.

However, ministers stress that longer-term – perhaps in about 10 years’ time – this domestically generated power will reduce household bills significantly, compared with bills had the plant not been built.

The chancellor also confirmed its manifesto plan to improve insulation in homes in order to reduce energy use and therefore bills.

A total of £39bn is going to be invested in affordable and social housing in England. The aim of this is to improve the availability of homes for those on lower incomes.

The government says this investment will help ministers hit their target of building 1.5 million new homes by 2030.

The money will come over the next 10 years.

But, like so many of these policies, there are questions over where the money is going to come from, whether it will need to be topped up in time, and whether it will ultimately lead to tax rises.

Changes to the government’s self-imposed rules mean there will be a further £10bn for Homes England to boost housebuilding.

Paul Gibson says funding has a “massive impact” on the level of service the force can provide.

The rain and high winds experienced during stormy weather can damage homes and cause power outages.

Increasing costs are presenting financial challenges and its trips are on hold, the charity says.

The Treasury confirms funding for the stations in Devon and Somerset is in the spending review.

Drakeford accuses Rhun ap Iorwerth of being “very bad at listening” as he is heckled.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

The government has set out how much it is going to spend over the next four years on the public services that millions of people use every day.

That includes the NHS, schools and public transport as well as welfare benefits, armed forces, energy projects and a whole range of other government spending.

We asked a handful of readers, who had contacted the BBC via Your Voice, Your BBC News, their views and reaction to Wednesday’s announcement.

Ollie Vass, 19, works for a nutritional supplement company, where he earns £31,000. His girlfriend Grace Sangster also 19 is on an apprenticeship scheme earning £40,000.

They each started saving from the age of 13, earning money mowing lawns and working in restaurants.

In April, with the help of a small inheritance and their Lifetime ISAs, the couple completed on a £360,000 two-bedroomed terraced house near Slough.

Ollie and Grace had both wanted to see more support for young people starting out, especially first-time buyers, and more apprenticeships.

Grace’s initial reaction to the Spending Review was “it wasn’t brilliant”, but the extra NHS spending was a positive. “I hope that is to pay workers more.”

Both her and Ollie think the government announcing £39bn of spending on social housing is the wrong move.

“They [the government] have made it impossible for first-time buyers putting stamp duty up. I just think they are looking at the wrong place,” says Grace.

“They should be making it easier for lower income households to buy,” she suggests, adding: “It’s not the mortgage people cannot afford, it’s the deposit.”

Ollie says he would have liked to see the bus fare cap returned to £2 a journey from £3, and also look at subsidising rail fares, which he thinks are too expensive.

Lewis Eager, 26, works three shifts a week in the on-demand delivery service for a supermarket in Southend-on-Sea, earning about £10,000 per year. He lives with his parents who he pays £120 a month.

He says he was “broadly happy” with the Chancellor’s Spending Review, and especially pleased with the expansion of free school meals, investment in apprenticeships and nuclear energy.

“After doing some research, I have a lot more confidence in nuclear energy,” he says, adding it will be “extremely positive” if it leads to lower bills.

When it comes to training for career, Lewis hopes employers will respond to the government’s new spending by lowering barriers to applicants.

Lewis completed a business administration apprenticeship and an Open University degree, but says he cannot find full-time work.

He estimates he has applied for more than 4,000 jobs without success.

“Getting knocked down all the time is horrible,” he says, and even entry-level jobs seem to require experience.

He sees a “looming crisis” among young people unable to get on the jobs ladder, and would like to see more money go into adult education.

Lewis says one aspect of the Spending Review he disliked was the potential for council tax rises.

Resheka Senior, 39, is a nursery nurse and her husband Marcus, 49, a school caretaker. Between them they take home more than £50,000 a year. But the couple say they are still struggling, particularly while Resheka is on maternity leave.

When she goes back to work, Resheka says she won’t be much better off because she will have to pay for childcare before and after school for her five-year-old and all day for the younger children, aged two and nine-months.

They have debts that they are shuffling between credit cards and no prospect of moving out of their two-bedroom council flat in Woolwich, London.

“I don’t want to stay at home. I’ve been working since I was 15 years old,” says Resheka. But she would like to see more support for couples who are “making an honest living”.

“It’s not as if I’m saying I want benefits,” she says. “We’re putting back into the economy. We just need some help.”

She wants the government to pay for free breakfast and after-school clubs, or more free childcare on top of the 30 hours a week currently provided.

She told the BBC the chancellor’s announcement that free school meals would be expanded was a good thing for struggling families.

Given her son’s school already does them, Resheka didn’t think there was much else that would directly impact her circumstances.

Sylvia Cook, 72, used to sell accounting software, then published books about Greece, before she retired.

Living on a pension of £20,000 means being careful with her outgoings, so she welcomes the government’s U-turn on winter fuel payments as “a good decision, if a little late”.

The extra £200 “obviously eases things”, she says.

She doesn’t disagree with the government spending more money on public services such as the NHS, but thinks more time should be spent looking at “inefficiencies” and how the money is spent.

“You can spend a lot of money and achieve nothing,” she says. “It’s got to be spent properly.”

She highlighted an example of being contacted multiple times by NHS services. “Why are they duplicating?”

She also suggests changes to the tax system, efficiency savings across government and cutting perks for MPs and civil servants.

“There are so many inefficient things they haven’t got the common sense to sort out.”

Additional reporting by Rozina Sini.

Get our flagship newsletter with all the headlines you need to start the day. Sign up here.

The chancellor highlights “uncertainty” in the world as economists warn of tax rises if the economy fails to grow.

Council tax is expected to rise by 5% a year to pay for local services, documents in the Spending Review suggest.

Projects in the South West were not included in the chancellor’s spending review on Wednesday.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledges £39bn across 10 years for social and affordable housing in England.

The government is making financial contribution of £50m towards the redevelopment of Casement Park.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

The UK food watchdog has warned people with allergies not to buy imported Dubai chocolate if they have any doubts about ingredients because of different labelling standards.

The Food Standards Agency’s chief scientific advisor said shoppers should stick to “trusted” retailers in the UK as the products they sell are more likely to be made for the domestic market.

Dubai chocolate has become hugely popular fuelled by so-called “influencers” on TikTok, leading UK supermarkets such as Waitrose and Lidl to impose per person limits to meet demand.

But a recent investigation by the BBC found several TikTok Shop users selling food without listing allergen information.

UK businesses are legally required to declare if a product they sell contains one of the 14 regulated allergens – including nuts and milk.

The FSA found some imported Dubai-style chocolate products may not have been intended for sale in the UK and therefore lack a full ingredients list or allergen labelling that are legally required.

Professor Robin May, the FSA’s chief chief scientific advisor, said: “Some imported Dubai-style chocolate products don’t meet our standards and could be a food safety risk, especially for consumers with allergies.”

He added: “As it’s difficult for consumers to tell the difference between products made for the UK and those that aren’t, if you have a food allergy or intolerance, we advise that you do not buy the product unless you’re certain it’s intended for sale here.”

By law, products made to UK standards must have labels that have the ingredients written in English, the name of the food, a best before or use by date, and the name and address of a UK or European Union (EU) business that is responsible for information on the product.

If the food is not from the EU or UK then an importer must be listed.

The FSA said it had worked with local authorities to identify a number of Dubai chocolate products that posed a health risk to consumers with allergies.

It said some of these products may also contain additives and colours which aren’t allowed to be sold in the UK.

The popular treat combines the flavours of chocolate, pistachio and tahini with filo pastry, and is inspired by the Arab dessert Knafeh.

The regulator is now sampling products to work out the scale of the problem.

It said shoppers should report any concerns to their local authority and is working with allergy charities to raise awareness.

The portraits made out of several types of digestives are covered with varnish to protect them.

Scientists near Reading help protect the world’s cocoa supply from pests and diseases.

The bar was one of a batch sent by Queen Victoria to British troops fighting in the Boer War.

Mr D’Souza reviewed 21 eggs last year and was watched by more than 4.2 million people on TikTok.

Mondelēz International, which owns the brand, says it took the “difficult decision” to axe the 360g bar.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.