"tesco" news and stories

Now this is interesting. Following the introduction of health warnings on the front of food packaging by major UK supermarkets, sales of certain products fell. In some cases, the drop was quite dramatic.

Today's Sunday Times reports that within two months of Tesco's introduction of nutrition labels, sales of Prawn Mayonnaise sandwiches have fallen 26%-37% over the past year. Sainsburys says that sales of Chicken Madras have fallen 40% since it began its labelling scheme 15 months ago. Similar declines were reported for Sainsbury's other ready meals.

While the government's Food Standard Agency has been trying to introduce a "traffic light" nutrition labelling program since 2004, individual supermarkets' efforts are having an immediate effect on customers' purchasing habits.

Other indications show that consumers are heeding the various warnings. Sales of Salmon en Croute fell by more than a third; that's unsurprising when you read that a package contains 91% of the daily recommendaded saturated fat intake. Croissant sales fell by 8%. In comparison, sales of low-fat, low-salt egg and cress sandwiches doubled.

Source

The British supermarket chain Tesco has launched a new product into its stores. Their Healthy Living Tomatoes are supposed to contain twice as much lycopene as an ordinary tomato. Lycopene is an antioxidant found in tomatoes that is believed to help prevent or decrease the risk of getting cancer, though some recent research suggests that it may also help to lower blood pressure.

The Healthy Living Tomatoes are bred naturally and are sold on the vine. A spokesperson for Tesco said that the tomato is the first product in a line of naturally super-functional foods that they hope to introduce. Though a varied diet is important to overall health, says the market, they are hoping to target consumers who want to get more bang for their nutritional buck - in addition to getting more nutrition for their actual buck.

Source

Tina Cosby got quite a surprise when she took the broccoli she bought the day before at Tesco out of her refrigerator. Nestled amid the florets was a footlong snake.

Cosby, who has a fear of spiders, was hysterical when she saw the European smooth snake. While the snakes are not poisonous, she's lucky it was only a baby. They're known to grow up to three feet long. Tesco has apologized to the family, and has assurances from its suppliers in Spain that this will not happen again.

Source

Hailed in some quarters, and with me, as an unnecessary 'nanny-state' imposition the planned introduction of a traffic-light system on food packaging will not be taken up by Tesco and Morrisons, two of the UK's largest supermarket chains.

The UK's Food Standards Agency has been planning for months to introduce the nationwide scheme as an easy way for consumers to check if food is healthy or harmful. I mean how difficult is it to know that chocolate coated hobnobs ain't that good for you without having to stamp the packet with a red circle? Tesco also raised concerns that things like apples - with high sugar content - would also have a red circle.

While other supermarkets such as Waitrose are (or were) planning to comply with the voluntary scheme many food producers such as Kraft Foods, Danone, Kellogg's , Pepsi and Nestle were not. 

Source

It seems a long time in coming. Concerns over the dominance of the four big supermarket chains in the UK have been bubbling along for several years.

At last, an inquiry is to be launched after the Office of Fair Trading ruled that the Competition Commission must launch a probe into their activities. The main source of concern is that the top supermarkets - Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrison's - are forcing local convenience stores out of business. Their dominance of food retailing has risen dramatically over the past few years.

While there are avenues independent retailers can take - specialism, niche and upmarket, this is obviously not suitable for every town and area. To me, the obvious step is to give substantial tax rebates (lower council imposed rates for example) to the one or two shop independents to allow them to prosper.

Source