I am at war. Well it's more like a peaceful protest. The company in question does not know this. Most people who know me are aware, though some of the 'mosts' think that it is due to snobbery. And I can understand this view, because one the reasons for my beef is a little uppity, though not necessarily untrue. At least in my opinion.
The company? Tesco. The reason? Oh there are many.
The first reason that I will outline is the one that indicates snobbery. I think that the goods they offer are of poor quality relative to the prices that they charge. Compared to M&S and Waitrose where you can almost guarantee that you are paying for items that have been prepared with decent ingredients, Tesco's only guarantee is that you will spend more than you think you are for the most base items.
My main example comes from the time that I used to shop there. I would buy a ham and mustard sandwich for £1 for lunch. I was aware that the quality was poor - cheap white bread, meat that has about 5% meat in it - but I needed a quick, easy and cheap lunch. Over the Christmas period the price went up by 10 pence. I could deal with that, as yearly inflation is a given. However, the following month saw this price rise by another 10 pence. The item was still the same, but Tesco profits were increasing swiftly. (And, for the record, you can get a free range egg sandwich on seeded bread for £1 from M&S. As far as I can see, the better quality sandwiches in M&S cost little, if any, more.)
Whilst Tesco winningly display their eye catching orange and red signs that convince their customers that they are getting a great deal, they use an underhand method of marking higher prices on the products next door to the 'deal' in order to rake in the pounds. I imagine this is a common tactic, but Tesco's reputation is falsely built on providing inexpensive goods. The extra cash certainly doesn't go to the suppliers. According to the Guardian, pre tax profits to the end of February 2010 were at £3.4b, up 10.1% on the previous year.
Yes, they are a business and their main criteria is to make money. But it seems that they do this at the expense of UK and world citizens.
For example, the UK farmers' plight seems to be aggravated at the moment:
An important point to mark from this article is this: “Latest statistics suggest English dairy farmers' numbers shrank by another 3.5 per cent in the year to September [2010], though the figure was 5.5 per cent in Wales, where a further 115 producers quit as a result of low prices.”
This has nothing to do with demand, as our population only increases. Suppliers cannot feasibly run their own businesses. Forget about profit, they cannot continue to survive. A friend of mine works on a stall selling cheese at the weekend. The reason for the very existence of this cheese is because the farmers could not sustain a living by selling milk, which had been their previous interest. Tesco is squeezing the supplier to bursting point.
I see this as unethical and totally irresponsible. And yes, other supermarkets are culpable in a similar way (though apparently not on such a big scale), and none of them should be excused, but Tesco is the most visible supermarket in the UK and I believe that it has a responsibility to ensure that their standards are respectable.
Standards? Pah. Another Guardian article published today (1st Feb) marks the company as it bows under new pressure from the public. Their credit card charges were noticeably out of line with industry standards, and their policy seemed to celebrate the theft of even more money from its customers. According to the Guardian's research, the company could be "raking in around £12m a year" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/feb/01/tesco-reduces-credit-card-charges). Perhaps the credit-card holders should have taken notice of the small print. Perhaps they shouldn't have been living on credit. If you can't afford it...
Anyhow, it was another money-spinning scheme with poor standards.
Other standards to take note of are their environmental ones, or lack thereof. As mentioned in my previous blog, Tesco offers a points scheme. If you use your own bags rather than Tesco plastic bags, you will get points. Great! Incentivising environmental awareness! Not a bad plan. Other ways of collecting points include buying fuel... You can then spend your points on air travel and motoring. The Tesco Clubcard is nothing but a PR gimick. The company recognises that there is a place for environmental issues in business and abuse the issues instead of embracing them.
The environmental issues? See the following points that The Ethical Consumer Research Association Ltd (ECRA) make on www.ethicalconsumer.org:
- Climate change — the food industry is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions
- Energy efficiency — large stores and door-less chiller units are inefficient
- Road freighting and food miles — fewer local farmers and shops mean food has to be transported further, plus sale of out-of- season produce means more air miles
- Car use and traffic — 1 in 10 car journeys in the UK are to buy food. Work for DEFRA suggests that car use for food shopping results in costs to society of more than £3.5 billion per year from traffic emissions, noise, accidents and congestion.
- Waste (packaging and food) — grocery packaging still makes up roughly a quarter of household waste.
When I used to work at Tesco, I would see food item after food item being thrown away. In most cases the food was perfectly edible. The excessive wrapping was also, naturally, thrown away with the food.
According to the BBC, "Seventeen million tonnes of food is being ploughed into Britain's landfill sites every year - all because it's cheaper and easier for the food industry to dump it than give it to those in need. It's a massive waste when you consider that around four million tonnes of this food is perfectly alright to eat." (An article from 5 years ago. With hundreds more supermarket stores popping up all over the place, could this figure be any less in 2011?) http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/series7/supermarket_landfills.shtml
I spoke to a manager about this at the time and his attitude was lackadaisical. Why not give it to staff at the end of a shift if it is to be thrown away? They will be dismissed for theft. Handing it out to others who need it? It is too costly to do so.
Just as it is too costly to pro-actively set about some much needed ethical standards. The above manager worked 6 day weeks, 9 hour days and got paid £15,000 a year. So perhaps the salaries of the mostly hard-working staff could be addressed for one thing.
For another, providing ethically sourced food to consumers. Animal welfare in particular should be top of the list, and I don't think the choice should be given to the shopper whether or not to buy free range eggs, free range chicken and so on. I eat meat, and I like to know that the animal that I am eating is healthy, that it is not pumped full of water to make it appear bigger and tastier, that it did not develop painful ulcers due to shocking living conditions, or have cuts and sores as a result being attacked by other animals in too-tight living quarters.
Co-op and Waitrose have fantastic records for providing ethical products; Co-op was the pioneer in ethical trading standards, and Waitrose is now the leading supplier of Fairtrade products, including those that are hard to find, such as jams and biscuits. M&S is also committed to improving its ethical strategy and fairtrade commitments. It has launched an organic cotton range, which means that the working conditions for the cotton pickers are vastly improved.
Co-op is also markedly committed to reducing its impact on the environment, as it sources "98% renewable electricity in its 5,500 sites across the UK" (http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/coop-and-marks-and-spencer-named-uks-greenest-supermarkets-2013.aspx). If you haven't the time to read this short article on 'greenest supermarkets', I'll highlight another point from it: "Tesco, Asda and Netta were identified as the three worst performing companies [of the 19 leading supermarkets that were assessed]".
Co-op is the fifth largest food provider in the UK and shows that profits can be made ethically and responsibly. Tesco has no excuse and frankly I am disgusted by the business. I have been in the store three times in the last two years and will never do so again. I try to be as balanced about this as possible, and understand that others are less than saintly. But their visibility makes their culpability more disgraceful, and their outrageous profit margins pure capitalist greed. Am I naive? Perhaps. Nevertheless I expect more.
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