tesco - is it that bad

[swallowthree]

Planning permission being sought for a big new supermarket (maybe tesco) in my town. Is that such bad news ?

Food is crap and really not that cheap.

Tesco is brilliant. Supermarkets are to be applauded for bringing quality food at affordable prices. Poorer people are allowed to eat asparagus too, you know.

That's the whole point, shiney - customers love it. Yes tesco might play hard ball with their farmers/suppliers (which I'm not saying is a good thing, but tesco does seem to be the holy grail for producers still) but they don't with customers. Tesco makes it easy for you to shop there so people do. I'd use the fishmonger instead of tesco if there wasn't always flies in the shop and no cover over the fish to stop people sneezing all over it...
In my parents' home town a big tesco recently opened right in the centre and initially people had a good old whinge, but it's actually been really good for the town as the independant shops have upped their game and now the whole town is thriving.

My nearest Town is Inverness, known up here as Tesco Town.
We are eventually getting an Asda here after many years of them trying to get a foothold, and being refused again and again (with objections coming from,Guess Who, Tesco. They have about half a dozen stores within a ten mile area.
Bastards are taking over the world.

we have a tesco 0.3 miles from home, there is a sainsbury extra 0.9 miles from home.

it was the sainsbury extra that put the small business out of business and now that the small shops have gone, sainsbury have put their prices up they are charging more than their own supermarket 2 miles away.

I went to the tesco store for the first time in about 3 months and wanted borotti beans and ready made custard, neither product could be found. This is a store that sells clothes and has a costa coffee shop - yet their product range is only what they want to sell and not what the customer wants to buy - no ready made custard..?

Tyler80 Where is that, please? You would be inundated with people.

It depends, Wormshuffler. I've lived in an area where there are lots of good, independent shops and also successful supermarkets. While the products would overlap a bit, you'd still always go to the independents to buy more unique stuff that the supermarkets don't offer.

If the supermarkets weren't there locally I'd just make an online supermarket order in any case, for the main bulk of groceries. Like most people, I haven't got time to trek to the local high street every day with a shopping basket for the day's food and supplies. And I wouldn't do a weekly/monthly shop on the local high street as there's no way I could carry it all!

Tesco are evil. 2 towns are under one council here, we only have a population of approx 114,000.

Yet we have Waitrose, Morrisons, Asda,a few Co-ops, a new larger Sainbury's being built and a massive Tesco between the towns.

Tesco bought all the derelict land from the Pharmaceutical companies leaving and are currently trying to push through planning permission for another giant Tesco store. Not an Extra, another Superstore.

They are trying to bribe us with a new cinema, outdoor swimming pool etc. It gets through the first stage of planning and suddenly it is Ooops we want to downgrade the swimming pool to a splash park. Actually maybe we don't want a water park at all blah blah blah.

I have lived here all my life and out of all the small butchers, greengrocers etc..1 is left. Out of 6 off the top of my head.

We have a perfectly good Tesco for those that want to shop there. It's 10 minutes on a good bus route.

I despise Tesco.

"it was the sainsbury extra that put the small business out of business"
yeah, cos they forced the customers to walk through the doors, and held guns to their head while they filled their baskets.

ivykaty44*

Ready made custard!!!!! Why not make it yourself?

Yes ivykaty why don't you grow sugar beet in your garden, refine it into sugar, keep a cow and milk it, and harvest your own vanilla pods? You could make custard from scratch you know!

Yes it is bad, Tesco is generally bad for consumers, suppliers and the treasury.

It feels like you're getting a good deal but you're not. If you were getting a good deal, they wouldn't make the astronomic profits they do.

All that crap like clubcard points etc - Tesco do that cos its good for them. It's not good for the consumer. It feels like it is, but it isn't.

Yes, it is bad

Hmmm, we have two Tesco Extra stores, two Asda stores, one Sainsburys and a Morrisons, two Aldi, two Lidl and numerous Express versions of Tesco/Sainsburys but thriving butchers, bakers and greengrocers. I have 3 butchers, 2 greengrocers and 4 bakeries within walking distance of my house, so they can co-exist.

They didn't get big by selling things people don't want to buy at prices they are not willing to pay.

Olivetti

no cos they got the council top agree to longer opening hours and under cut the prices of the other business - that is until they shut down and then the price got higher and higher - so everyone suffers then as we don't have the choice.

No guns where needed just ignorance of the public to the path that lays ahead

I guess you are happy for your food bills to get higher and higher?

Interesting. I worry about Tesco and the other big supermarkets because of the way they manipulate the market and cause waste. The milk example is a good one. The other one is forcing farmers to throw away fruit and veg that isn't the right shape - they don't want it but the contract says they aren't allowed to sell it to anyone else. I can't see the need for the large Tesco planned in my small town. We already have a co op and costcutters. Loads of people do their Tesco shop online if they want Tesco stuff. My anxiety is about the impact on small retailers who are the heart of the town and also the increased traffic problems - they are siting in an area with small roads that will soon get jammed - also right next to a residential area. I don't like it.

It is overly simplistic to say that Tesco are just giving people what they want. There is huge psychology and aggressive marketing involved in a large business like this, for example they have massive ad campaigns telling consumers how cheap they are but actually when you compare the whole range of items people buy in the course of a year, rather than the small number of known value items, these big stores don't actually save you much money.

They promote the stock they want rid of, encourage us to buy more than we need (2 for 1 etc), shaft suppliers/producers, put specialists out of business thus reducing choice in local area and use dodgy/unethical/exploitative international supply chains.

They have got that big selling people stuff at massive margins whilst screwing everyone else in the chain, keeping customers loyal with a load of phoney benefits like clubcard points which are invaluable to the company because the data they collect means they can target specific customers with specific offers meaning they spend more than they would if left to their own devices.

TheSecondComing .
"they dictate prices to farmers plus and dictate what they must grow"

That's the market economy for you squire. Buyers will pay as little as they can, and sellers will charge as much as they can.

If the farmers could sell it for more to someone else, they would. What's your house worth? It's worth what someone will pay for it. Same as a tanker of milk.

I might not approve, but it is not any single supermarket chain that causes the system to work like that.

I have a feeling that, in time, monopoly and competition laws might see the big chains broken up. It happened to brewers and their chains of pubs, and is happening to big banks. Have you written to your MP yet?

"They have got that big selling people stuff at massive margins"

No, Tesco got big by selling masses of stuff at fairly low profit margins - high volume, low margin.

It is not a singe supermarket causing the problem, but it is naive to call it a free market. The competition commission found a cartel operating in milk pricing for example.

Also when you are selling a product that has a short shelf life, you can't just turn around and take it somewhere else when a supermarket starts fucking you around (deliberately sending back part of the order on minor appearance variations for example). Many suppliers produce a specific amount of product for the supermarket contract but the supermarket retains the right to turn around and cancel all or part of the order. Then that product has no outlet at all.

Its not a free market. It's nothing like the housing market, which is usually one person buying one house at a time, from a choice of many hundreds.

Should read single not singe.

Yes. Tesco is that bad.

Read this: www.tescopoly.org/