Toast - Toys R Us

Sliced Bread

BBC

Health & Fitness

4.6 • 634 Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why did Toys R Us have to close all of its UK superstores in 2018?

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 BBC business journalist, Sean Farrington, examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did it fail? What can we learn from it today?

In this Christmas special, Sean examines the charming story behind one of our best-known toy brands before hearing how it faltered.

Expert commentators and employees reflect on why the business had been so successful and what went wrong.

Alongside them is the self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, to analyse the missteps that changed the brand?s fortunes.

Together, they hear how Toys R Us is making a comeback in the UK.

You can email the programme at [email protected]

Feel free to suggest topics which we could cover in future episodes.

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 in February. 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 BBC Sounds.

Toast is produced by Jon Douglas and Viant Siddique and is a BBC Audio North production for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, podcast fan.
0:03.0	Consider this your invite to the UK's biggest podcasting party.
0:06.7	We're heading to Sheffield from the 4th to the 6th of July
0:09.0	for the BBC Sounds Fringe at the Crossed Wires Festival.
0:12.8	We'll be joined by some of the biggest names in podcasting,
0:15.3	including Sarah Cox, Charlie Hedges, Russell Kane,
0:18.4	and some bloke called Greg James doing his radio four show called Rewinder.
0:23.2	You can watch live shows of your favourite podcasts and the best part is free.
0:28.1	To book your free tickets, go to crossedwires.org slash fringe.
0:34.4	BBC Sounds, music, Radio Podcasts.
0:39.3	Hello and welcome to a very special Christmas edition of the BBC Radio 4 series, Toast, where we look at those big business ideas that promise so much to consumers, but ended up toast.
0:53.3	I'm Sean Farrington.
0:54.8	With me is Sam White's entrepreneur, self-made millionaire,
0:58.4	and much more importantly,
1:00.1	our resident adjudicator of what went wrong
1:02.5	with all these great ideas.
1:04.3	Sam, hello.
1:05.3	Hey, I've missed you.
1:07.1	Me.
1:07.7	I was going to say me too, as if I've missed me as well.
1:10.1	I've missed you as well. Have you noticed
1:12.8	I've gone to the extra special lengths of... It looks like a Christmas jumper. A Christmas
	...

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