Times are tough and people are feeling the pinch, but not everyone is shopping downmarket, in fact many people can still afford to go to Waitrose. But how to look responsible and still eat well? Enter the Camo Bag concept. ‘Of course we can still afford to buy the best,” says Helen whose husband is a well-paid columnist on a liberal newspaper. ‘But in our circle it’s just not cool now to admit it. When Tatiana gets the Waitrose bags out of the back of the Range Rover I can almost feel the neighbours disapproval.” So Helen had as she puts it, ‘a brilliant idea!”

Good old Greggs the Bakers. I know they aren’t on the radar of foodies, most fine diners probably don’t know where or what Greggs are, but the La Chavroche of the under classes is bucking recessionary trends and saw underlying sales in the four weeks to 3 January rise by 5.3%.What’s more they plan expansion into the gaping holes that will be left as other shops go out of business. Greggs already currently has 1409 shops which, when you think about it, is an awful lot of cheese and onion pies.

One of the success stories of Luke Johnson, the man behind for my money the only decent pizza chain, Pizza Express, FishWorks now looks to be in trouble. It’s making a loss and unlike the average angler, is not exaggerating when it says the problems could be bigger than predicted