To think well done, Tesco?

[MilkandAssal]

The whole Tesco & Unilever hoo-ha.

I understand people have first world problems, crying about Marmite and Hellmans and whatever else is super thrilling on their weekly shop; but am I alone in thinking well done Tesco? Well done for not buckling under immense pressure, and that 10% price hitch which would have smacked Tesco shoppers in the bollocks?

Now that Unilever have been told to get fucked, I'm sure that the other supermarkets won't be willing to take the 10% increase either. Am I missing a bigger picture?

I buy Tesco Marmite and mayonnaise anyway, nothing is irreplaceable but have we really become that materialised that #marmitegate is a thing?

Of course it's Brexit! The plunge of the pound has happened since May indicated her support for hard Brexit (i.e. leaving the single market).

Its mays fault for wanting to leave the single market that is not in anyone's best interest

The head of tesco used to work for unilever, and the head of sainsbury for proctor & gamble - so it is all a bit of a circus.

There will be increased cost inflation all round - it just takes a company as big as unilever to take on tesco.

All companies exist to maximise returns to shareholders - nothing else really, beyond complying with the laws of the land.

why should they palm that off onto us?

Umm, because some of "us" were the idiots that voted for this whole mess and all of us now need to accept the consequences, of which inflation is one?

Really not feeling the love for Tesco at the moment. He has just been told that instead of finishing for Christmas at 7am on Christmas eve (after a night shift) as he always has, this year he has to go in for a twilight shift 4-midnight. But if he doesn't want to do that he can go in on boxing day instead. From 4am. Lovely.

But why? Why should they palm that off on us?

Why shouldn't they? It's how all commerce works. Pound plummets, price of raw materials goes up for the manufacturer, manufacturer puts prices up for shops, shops put prices up for consumers. If the producer doesn't do that, producer goes under. It's not a charity.

I suspect you've fallen for the Brexit propaganda that Project Fear was all a myth, and that the inevitable fall in the pound wouldn't affect consumers.

If the cost of things has gone up due to exchange rate issues then Tesco bullying suppliers (on our behalf, yeah right) is frankly the wrong end of the stick.

I've said nothing about brexit before but now I will say the price inflation in this instance is inevitable and Tesco refusing to pay it doesn't make it not exist. I think the leave voters can take responsibility for this one. Hopefully though it's short term.

1. Unilever increased their prices.
2. Tesco's usual bullying tactics failed to work.
3. Tesco announces that they are 'boycotting' Unilever products.

Tesco are 'standing up for' nothing.
They are pissed off because they are unable to buy at their price. They don't want to see a dent in their profit margins.
This has nothing to do with protecting customers from rising prices, Tesco could take the hit but they won't.
Good for Unilever for walking away from dealing with Tesco.

You seem to be missing the point that prices are going up for everything in every store, not just Unilever products at Tesco. Very, very little food is made in the UK, and even when it is, bottles, labels, machinery is imported. The £ is at its lowest since 1980, so stores can't import as much. This is before tariffs are going to be added at the Brexit. Food prices on everything is going to go up by at least 5% this year, and probably over 10% once the Brexit happens because of tariffs. So this isn't Tesco standing up to a multinational bully, this is a scary indictment of how much more we are going to pay for things. Don't think you are escaping it by buying Tesco own brand Marmite, that is going to go up by 5-10% over the next 18 months too...

I am glad that the currency change is affecting what we import and buy at the supermarkets.

If it becomes cheaper to buy from UK producers this can only be a good thing for UK farmers and manufacturing. Which will be a good thing for the UK economy.

One of the reasons UK farmers are struggling and going bust is that it has become so cheap to.import food from the EU. Welfare standards aren't the same so our farmers aren't competing on a fair playing field.

Plus if we have to pay a bit more for our food then maybe food waste wouldn't be such an issue.

We have to import most of our food.
UK farmers couldn't feed the population of 40 million during WW2, despite it being a war of national survival - hence the convoys
I doubt they can feed 60 million now.

As it stands now they couldn't. But with better farming techniques, less eu regulations and investment in technology and plant we could reduce our imports significantly.

I have never understood why we import so much milk while UK dairy farmers go out of business. It isn't like there isn't a market for it. There are many complex issues surrounding the UK farm industry but imports and control of the market by the big 4 supermarkets definitely are the main 2 culprits.

And I know the EU regulations have had a big say in environmental factors but how much of an impact do food miles have on the environment?

And a lot of the issues post ww2 (and during) were contributed by a lack of labour, machinery, and a shattered infrastructure.

If we bought more seasonal produce, managed waste better and didn't rejet wonky carrots we would naturally reduce our food bills. And UK farmers wouldn't reject 1000's and 1000's of tonnes of food because it didn't meet supermarket policy.

"Plus if we have to pay a bit more for our food then maybe food waste wouldn't be such an issue."

My issue with food waste is that everything is packed in containers or packets that are too large. I was looking for sour cream the other day and the only size available was 300ml. I only wanted half that much. The rest would have gone to waste or had to be eaten, and I don't need all those calories.

The same with jars of spice pastes etc. I never manage to use them up before they go mouldy. I usually cook curries from scratch, but I can't always source the raw ingredients for Thai curry pastes for example.

Good for Unilever for standing up to Tesco in a way small suppliers aren't able to. When the real cost of production rises for whatever reason, someone has to pay for it. It's either the retailer, manufacturer or consumer. Tesco didn't want to cut into their margin. No championing consumer rights there, simple self interest.

I agree Nickname. I always end up throwing half a tub of sourcreme after fajitas. And the curry pastes!

I do try and reduce waste as much as possible and my freezer is full of portions of food like bolognaise and stews. But the raw ingredients often don't freeze or keep for long.

But we are used to being dictated to by the supermarkets as to what size stuff we need. When I was a kid we had a dairy at the bottom of the road. They used to sell milk but also stuff like sour creme and cottage cheese by the quater. Market stalls are brilliant for this. But they can't compete with the supermarkets on price or convenience so we lose them. And end up buying imported stuff from supermarkets in quantities we don't need and packaging we don't need.

I bought 3 chicken breasts from the butchers. They came in 2 plastic bags. The same 3 breasts from a supermarket would come in a plastic tray. Probably 100 times more plastic used if not more.

And price wise the butchers ones were cheaper and from no further than 60 miles away as he has a local policy.

Supermarkets have the UK just where it wants us. farmers can't afford to not supply to them. We can't do without the convenience of them and rely on the prices to be able to afford to eat what we want.

If imports become more expensive I am hopeful that the UK farmers will take back a bit of control and we can become more self sufficient as a country. I don't think we will ever be 100% self sufficient but hope we move away from the 40% I think we currently are.

In the current political climate worldwide this has got to be a good thing.

frou - where do you think this money for investment in farming is going to come from? Theresa May has just announced no money for the NHS - I hardly think she's going to get the chequebook out for farming. You know who DID fund a lot of investment into British farming? THE EU.

farming shouldn't need investment! It is a business like any other.

If the stranglehold of UK supremarkets goes, if the prices of UK produced food increases then farmers shouldn't need handouts. They should be able to fund the investment they need themselves. Plus many businesses recieve investment or funding from banks and other private sources. If farming was more profitable then they would attract this kind of funding and investment.

We have ponies. Many of the local farms have been paid by the EU to set land aside. So they can't produce anything from the land. What they do instead is have the land for grazing for ponies instead. If they didn't get the eu subsidy they would be forced to farm this land instead.

If import prices increase to the point when it becomes more economical to buy from UK farmers again this land would be used for farming again instead of liveries then this would increase UK production.

And I live in a grim northern town. So if we see the acreage that is turned over to what is essentially a recreational sport how much of the Uk agricultural land is lost in this way?

And that is just a tiny, tiny part of the issues surrounding UK farming.

Frou - it shouldn't need investment is neither here nor there because it does need it. The farming industry took such a hit in the 2001 crisis that it would never have recovered at all without EU subsidy.

As farming currently stands, we simply don't have the resources to feed our population. You were the one who mentioned investment. I would like to know where you think that will come from?

farming shouldn't need investment! It is a business like any other.

Businesses need investment. Why should farming be any different? Have you seen the price of farm machinery? Farmers can't just go out and scatter a few seeds in a field previously used for ponies and expect to be able to produce megabucks, particularly if they don't have the relevant harvesting equipment and storage. Banks aren't exactly falling over themselves to lend money to farmers either.

It's ridiculous to compare the UK today with the UK during WW2. It's a completely different world. People could be buying only grown and farmed foods now, for a lot less than all the packaged stuff. But the reality is that people want convenience. They want to be able to buy a pizza wrapped in plastic to fling in the oven. And it isn't just food which is purchased at the supermarket. Cleaning products, toiletries etc will also increase in price. EVERYTHING will go up. And it isn't possible to just move everything to the UK. We don't have the raw materials needed to produce.

We currently export £250b of produce (including cars, which we import the parts to build)

We import £690b of produce. Because we need to.

If farming was more profitable and sustainable and the UK relied more on its own produce rather then eu produce then farms would become more profitable and they would attract investment in the same way as any other business.

Co ops would become more common, fames can quite often 'share' machines and plant and banks might be more inclined to lend to an industry that was on the up rather than declining.

I fully appreciate that the issue is massively more complex than the price of milk from the EU increasing and suddenly the dairy herds of the Uk being able to provide the amounts we need.

But every farmer I know voted for Brexit despite the subsidiaries they recieve. We went to the North East coast and drove through many villages and farm land and were shocked at the amount of Vote Leave signage we saw. So from what I have seen and heard from the farmers we know being a member of the EU isn't good for business.

Are we supposed to be congratulating Tesco? Someone somewhere will pay, and it's always consumers eventually. With the fall in the pound, food with cost more. It's one of the things that the remain campaign warned about, but people preferred to ignore them.

Plus we are currently paying almost less for food than at any time in history, as a proportion of income. People have become used to food almost not being worth spending good money on.

This will change.

Good point Sukey. I believe that we spend a lower proportion of our income on food than the rest of Europe.

Slightly off topic but I was thinking about that this morning. My pre-teen bought agin of Quality Street in Tesco yesterday with the few £ she gets for pocket money (friends coming round). As a child the only time I would ever have seen a tin of quality street was at Christmas at my grandparents and even at that they would have lasted for weeks.