Friday 9 July 2010

The Tale Of Brer Tesco

It's an outrage!

Britain's biggest supermarket is being accused of encouraging binge drinking by selling bottles of wine for just £1.11.

Tesco has supported a Government crackdown on the sale of alcohol below cost price.

Yet its stores are selling a Bulgarian Chardonnay under the Silver Rock label for as little as £1.11 for a regular 75cl bottle.

Tesco defended the decision on the basis that the wine, which normally sells for £2.99, has been delisted from some stores and has been reduced to a rock bottom price to shift it.
Having read this in the office, I must have let my business head influence comprehension of the article.

You see, I could only read it from Tesco's side of the equation.

Imagine I'm Terry Leahy, OK? Not anywhere near as rich, but marginally less geeky looking. I've recently presided over a board decision to back minimum alcohol pricing (we discussed it over a £2 meal deal of any sarnie, crisps and a juice) as it benefits our business immensely. Government have knocked that idea on the head though. It's not that they don't like it, just that the other side thought of it first.

However, the other options could be equally advantageous and may even lead to super profits if the consultation exercise falls the right way for us. As we chomped on our salt and vinegar Walkers, we were discussing how wonderful it will be not to have to compete over economy alcohol pricing with other supermarkets. Especially now we occupy a position at the top of retail pile.

So it's important that MPs are regularly reminded that something very definitely needs to be done - as they scratch around working out exactly what that 'something' they should be doing, err, is.

A few garish tabloid articles should do the trick. Perhaps we could encourage such things by, say, offering one slow-selling line at a headline-grabbing price. Just for a few hours, at least.

Well, if I was a cunning Liverpudlian who was born and bred in a supermarket aisle, that's what I'd have done, anyway.

Out of curiosity, a trip to Tesco was in order on my way home. It took a while to find the offending bottle, mainly because I started by searching for ones labelled as 'price cut'. Still, I finally spotted the cheeky little number ... selling for £2.99.

Nice one Brer Tesco, job done.


10 comments:

Curmudgeon said...

Presumably the Righteous believe that the wine would have been better poured down the drain rather than being sold off at a bargain price.

Dick Puddlecote said...

That was the other angle which struck me, Mudgie. A little challenge from Tesco, as if to say "whatcha gonna do about that sort of thing, then?".

SadButMadLad said...

Are they screw top bottles? I could do with buying some for my Elderflower cordial. Unless I keep loads of wine bottles they cost about £1.50 to buy new bottles in small quantities.

Elderflower cordial is great for these hot summer days. 20 heads of flowers, 4lbs of sugar, 2pints water, a couple of sliced lemons. Boil water and sugar till dissolved. Then take off heat and add other ingredients. Leave covered for 24 hours. Keeps for months if you add 2tbs of citric acid.

Alan B said...

SadButMadLad suggested adding 2tbs of citric acid to his elderflower cordial. Last time I tried to buy either citric acid or tartaric acid I was told they were banned from sale because they were being used to "cut" street drugs such as cocaine. The assistant I asked looked at me as if trying to work out if she should report me to the Police.

Is this true, I wonder, or is it just an excuse to make home wine making more difficult? A totally unrepresentative survey locally (West Midlands) showed that the High Street shops that used to sell wine and beer making ingredients and equipment have ceased to do so...

Junican said...

Excuse me DP, I just want to try intalics.

.

Junican said...

Damn .....didn'y work....let me try again.

bla, bla.

Should say bla, bla in intalics.

Junican said...

Got it! Cheers.

Anonymous said...

Alan B, wine making and homebrew equipment and ingredients are no longer so widely available because of lack of demand. If ever a minimum alcohol price is introduced, expect to see them back in Boots the next day. There is no shortage of specialist wine making and homebrew shops. Wine from kits is very cheap: about £1.20 a bottle. My favourite low price wine is Lidl's £3.29 Valdepenas.

J Bonington Jagworth said...

Strange, isn't it, how the inhabitants of wine-exporting countries are not all paralytic from morning till night, and how their children, who get to consume the stuff at mealtimes from an early age, are rarely to be seen in the gutter, clutching empty plastic bottles of Diamond White?

Perhaps sitting down to dinner in a room without a TV should be made compulsory instead!

J Bonington Jagworth said...

@Anon

"Lidl's £3.29 Valdepenas"

Thank you for the tip-off. I remembered (just!) what you said when I was in our branch yesterday and bought a bottle to sample. Besht cheap red I've had in a long while. Hic!