Thursday 17 May 2007

The Axis of Evil - North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Tesco...

Having been downgraded from the Blackpool Tesco Mega Store to a local Tesco Express for my lunchbreak I was expecting to have a little less choice. What I wasn't expecting was a totalitarian choice of items...

I recall watching a documentary recently that stated Tescos market share as a supermarket was over 50% and fast approaching "monopoly" status due to their constant expansions and blocking of other retailers building on sites that might otherwise be good for a supermarket by buying land at overinflated prices and simply sitting on it.

As my more active blog readers will know, I'm not a fan of Tescos own brand Cup a Soup to say the least.. and what did I find was the only choice of cup form soup. Tescos. So this got me interested in product placement in these smaller "express" shops that are replacing the smaller outlets in towns and villages.

Tescos can obviously afford to run small losses in these shops in view of the bigger picture. I just worry were inadvertently becoming slaves to Tescos and what they deem it acceptable to buy. As a society though, we will only have ourselves to blame if it does happy.. no one cares about anything other than price when it comes to consumables, without a single thought to where its come from or how its been produced.

In any case, I had a shufftey round Tescos Express to see if there were any other totalitarian style buys and they do it with a lot of the little non-essentials that you might want and not be so disappointed they don't have your favourite brand. It probably would've gone under the radar if it hadn't have been that god awful soup...

This probably goes a big way to help control the losses they must be making in these smaller outlets.. Tescos own brand products (besides the Finest range) are hardly renown for their quality and they're usually only slightly cheaper than the products their attempting to clone.

So George, if you do happen to stumble across my blog when you're reading, do me a favour... next time you're referring to the "Axis of Evil", stick Tesco in there too when you're reaming off the nations you probably shouldn't be pissing off... when you're impeached/voted out/have to step down, it might be one of the only things you will be looked back upon to have got right...

No comments: