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Living on a low budget the old lady was saying how a lot of the range had disappeared from the store in the last few weeks. She was deciding what eggs she could afford and working out what she food wouldn't be able to buy because of the price of the eggs which she relied on as a food item. With 15 eggs in the everyday value range costing £1.34 the nearest she could get value wise would have been £3.00 for the same number of eggs, and then she would have to buy 20 at a cost of £4.00 because they came in boxes of 10. That is well over a 100% increase in price!
Then I started on a mission to find out if the old lady was right while I did the shopping, and it came as a surprise she was right. Gone had all but one of the value breakfast cereals, not a sign of the value Chocolate Mousses, or the Garlic Baguettes, then there are some of the value Biscuit range missing, in fact a lot of the products in the Everyday Value range on the companies website are absent from the Oakham store, making it more expensive for those on a tight budget to shop, and this table gives you an idea of how much by:
| Item | Value | Standard | Expense |
| Chocolate Mousse | 4.5p each | 15p each | 233% more |
| Eggs | 8.9p each | 16.6p each | 86% more |
| Single Garlic Baguette | 32p | 85p | 165% more |
| Rice Snaps | 18p per 100g | 33p per 100g | 83% more |
| Digestive Biscuits | 30p | 59p | 96% more |
While I was in the store I managed to ask one of the staff what had happened to the Everyday value range and I was given an answer I didn't expect from a supermarket whose advertising is "Every Little Helps". Clearly in this case it means every little bit of profit they can squeeze out of the customer by not stocking the value range is more than welcome in the company coffers, even if it means people like that little old lady have to miss a meal or two. The reason I was given was that Okaham is an affluent area and it is the managements view that stocking the value range stops customers coming into the store and by removing it from the shelves and concentrating on the own brand premium products they will attract more customers.
The reality is the poor people in Oakham who have no choice but to shop in the Tesco supermarket are being ripped off by the company. They are being denied food because they can't afford it. Due to the decision to remove value items the poorer people in the area will be eating less this summer. I really hope that the fat bellies that run the company and get massive bonuses are happy to know they are helping to starve the poor of Oakham while they sit and gloat on their profits.
Maybe a new slogan for the company is required, along the lines of "Starve the Poor, we feed the Rich". It looks like it is going to be hungry summer of the old and the poor in Oakham this year.
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3 comments:
Now they have stopped doing everyday value mince meat.
I know it's been a few months, but Oakham is not alone. The Darlington store in the north-east has undergone the same fate of phasing out the value range. Worse still is the manipulation of offers. Gone is the value beef mince, admittedly poor quality but good enough for a cheap midweek bolognese, and in is not the standard range, available at larger stores and online in the region of £3.00 per 500g, no, the result is much worse: £4.40 for 500g of basic 20% fat mince, or 3 for 2. We all know the supermarkets superficially raise their prices, but to this extent in a local store is bordering on Tesco showing contempt for their customers. I'm sure their response would be along the lines of: A, We see this is a competitive offer, B, There are additional costs to stocking Express stores or C, some other half-baked excuse about convenience being at the heart of their brand. It inconveniences me, but I feel for the older people where this truly pinches on their pension or modest wage.
hi I have been complaining for years that my crappy little Tesco metro in our village have been taking away value items and today was the last straw and I finally flipped and had an argument with the manager and called Tesco a bunch of thieves. Worse, one of their other managers admitted to me that he thought that taking away these items, forcing us to buy more expensive products, was acceptable as this was an 'affluent area'. Mis-labelling is common in this store, as is big signs saying 'reduced in price', but not mentioning that the pack size is smaller as well. This attitude is disgusting and I urge people to boycott Tesco and any supermarkets applying such tricks. It is not easy for me to go elsewhere as this is a small village and this is the only store locally - difficult if public transport is poor and you have no car to go elsewhere. However, it is worth the effort or will try shopping online with another store and getting my groceries delivered.
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