Sliced Bread Podcast
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 Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ 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 on 5 December, 2024. 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 Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Sounds. For this brand new series of Toast, episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week earlier than anywhere else, on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Sounds first.
Toast is a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Audio North production for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4.
Episodes to download
-
-
-
-
-
Tens machines and circulation boosters
Thu 14 Mar 2024
How effective are tens machines and circulation boosters?
-
-
-
-
-
-
Sliced Bread is back!
Mon 5 Feb 2024
Greg Foot returns to investigate a whole new batch of wonder products suggested by you.
-
Toast - Jamie's Italian
Thu 1 Feb 2024
What went wrong at Jamie Oliver's UK restaurant chain, Jamie's Italian?
-
-
Toast - Commodore Computers
Thu 11 Jan 2024
Why did the best-selling computer manufacturer, Commodore, go bust?
-
Toast - Sunny Delight
Thu 11 Jan 2024
Why did sales of the best-selling soft drink Sunny Delight suddenly bomb in the 1990s?
-
Toast - Toys R Us
Thu 21 Dec 2023
Why did the major toy retailer Toys R Us have to close all of its UK stores in 2018?
-
Toast is back!
Fri 15 Dec 2023
Sean Farrington returns to look at more grand business ideas that ended up as toast.
-
-
-
Vacuum cleaners
Thu 23 Nov 2023
Corded, cordless or robot - which vacuum cleaners are 'the best thing since sliced bread'?
-
-
-
Eco-friendly toilet paper
Thu 2 Nov 2023
Is eco-friendly toilet paper 'the best thing since sliced bread'?
-
-
Motion Sickness Remedies
Thu 19 Oct 2023
Motion sickness remedies promise to ease queasiness but which ones are proven to work?
-
-
-
-
Sliced Bread is back!
Thu 21 Sep 2023
Greg Foot returns to investigate a new batch of wonder products suggested by you.
-
Mosquito Repellents
Thu 13 Jul 2023
Are mosquito repellents 'the best thing since sliced bread'? Which ones really work?