Never liked Tesco since the whole Shirley Porter gerrymandering thing.

And their love of manipulating planning process – here in Brizzle we have a Tesco metro/express thingy being built next to a Co-Op store. WTF?!

CFH – maybe a problem in the short term but big supermarkets actually remove jobs from local economies. Per amount of groceries sold they employ far less people than an independent, and the profits are taken out of the local economy too (and probably not taxed properly).

surely you can see how the attitude of ‘I only care about myself’ isn’t a particularly great model for a decent society

hmm.. it’s a bit late for sentimentality though isn’t it..?
Didn’t the society you mention get pushed over and trampled to death in the 80s..?

isn’t boycotting Tesco’s a bit of a Canuteish gesture..?

use their huge power to bully suppliers and local planning departments.

I know at some level I should care about this, but I’m not sure why?

Ask a farmer.

If you are a supplier (of anything, doesn’t have to be food) and a big company buys everything you make, you give them a discount because they have signed a contract to buy everything for X years, so you no longer have to worry about maybe not selling anything some months.

However, because BigCo is so big and they can get their stuff so cheaply, they’ve squeezed out SmallCo who’ve gone out of business. Now BigCo are the only people to whom you can sell your stuff, so they can haggle you down on price. You have to accept, you’ve got no choice.

This is what supermarkets do. They haggle farmers down so much that many farmers end up poor. Average household income from the farm (ie profit) in 2009/2010 was £32k. Which isn’t that much when you consider they have to work basically ALL the time. 25% of farmers had a household income of below £20k for each the three years before 2010.

However, there’s a huge positive to having big supermarkets, and that’s cheap food. If you yourself are poor, this is a big deal.

It’s all nice and old fashioned to have loads of independent grocers/butchers/bakers, but I bet the supply overheads would drive up the overall cost of food. Would you be happy with that?

mol grips.. tescos are one of the good guys in this latest farmer crisis.. please seek out the nfu they ll set you straight..

and as for squeezing suppliers i d rather a farmer earnt less if it means my dairy stuffs cheaper.. I ve never seen a farmer signing on, and if farfmings such a bad lot why are land prices so high and farms selling for record amounts..

Are Tesco’s that bad.? My friend works at the distribution center up the road and seems to like it there.

working for them and working with them are two different things. They treat their suppliers appallingly – they funded their expansion by paying their bills late (in some cases they make more from the late payments to suppliers than they make off the markup to customers), and they also operate open book accounting with their suppliers. Basically a supplier has to turn over all the figures – every overhead and tesco decide for them what margin they’ll allow them to earn and price their suppliers goods for them, deciding how much or little profit they can make – basically by buying their goods they are taking a seat on the board without invitation and micromanaging the suppliers business for their own ends.

Maybe they could treat your mate the same way – get him to declare all his rent and bills and outgoings are each month then pay him a wage that is 3% more than that.

Its a two sided coin for me;

I hate how they treat suppliers; I work for a company who supplies non-food goods to them and they are intentionally difficult to deal with.

However on the other hand I hold quite a large number of Tesco shares and enjoy the dividends.

On Balance I think you should all support Tesco; I need a bigger TV.

😈

We go to Waitrose, we’ve petitioned to have metal and tattoo detectors fitted at the door to keep the riff raff out,

Kerry King is not amused to hear this

However, because BigCo is so big and they can get their stuff so cheaply, they’ve squeezed out SmallCo who’ve gone out of business. Now BigCo are the only people to whom you can sell your stuff, so they can haggle you down on price. You have to accept, you’ve got no choice.

what BigCo did was remove the distributor – so BigCo deals direct with the supplier and SmallCo has no channel to the supplier. Its helpful to BigCo ig you can squeeze the supplier until they give up or fail as now they are also removing the suppliers completely and buying up the farms. Most of the farms around me are operated by Morrisons. So in time there’ll be no produce available to SmallCo to sell.

The thing is – its a done deal, the horse bolted a long long time ago. We need to stop treating the supermarkets as grocers and regulate them instead as utilities.

I’ve gone back to shopping at Tesco recently after 6 years or so of Sainsburys. It’s ok. The food’s alright, the beer selection and offers are awesome, and…..get this! They have checkouts open so that you can pay and then leave the store without waiting very long! In Sainsbers, I always queued far longer which is what has finally driven me away. Plus Tescos is a bit rough n ready and threadbare around the edges – I like that.

if farfmings such a bad lot why are land prices so high and farms selling for record amounts

Because the land can be used for things other than farming?

We need to stop treating the supermarkets as grocers and regulate them instead as utilities

A good point.. I like this idea. Although we don’t treat our utilities as utilities ought to be treated imo. Food is as much (or more) of a basic necessity as water, transport, sanitation, power etc so why should it be different?

Maybe if we fixed the prices of food products..hmm… but that’d have to be done across the EU. Maybe we need some sort of common agricultural policy?

Tesco are also the single biggest private sector employer in the country by some way.

You said that like it’s a good thing…

Has there even been an instance of Tescos then closing as everyone was still using their local, previously-existing shops?

I was wondering that looking at that bit of graffiti/mural on the previous page. It says 93% of local people don’t want it, and if that’s true then they won’t shop there if it gets built, and it won’t do very well on the remaining 7%… right?

Has there even been an instance of Tescos then closing as everyone was still using their local, previously-existing shops?

There are quite a few instances of them not being allowed into towns.

LIVERPOOL ANARCHISTS where picketing the Tescometro at Bold street on Saturday along with Poundland, all about their use of woerkfare people, who get their dole plus other benifits and have to work for 30 hours a week at Tesco etc, for nothing, so free staff and shelf stackers it appears.

When i asked did they get tesco club card points as compensation the chap didnt get the sad joke.

I was wondering that looking at that bit of graffiti/mural on the previous page. It says 93% of local people don’t want it, and if that’s true then they won’t shop there if it gets built, and it won’t do very well on the remaining 7%… right?

I believe there was a Simpsons episode about this. 🙂

People end up voting with their wallets though don’t they. And it’s virtually impossible for an independent to compete on price (especially as supermarkets can afford to sell certain products at a loss).

Doesn’t mean people don’t have a right to object in the first place.

It says 93% of local people don’t want it, and if that’s true then they won’t shop there if it gets built

The big supermarkets rely totally on the Great British apathy kicking in very quickly after the initial flurry of complaining.

Was it 93% of the local people who responded to the survey who said they didn’t want a Tesco?

I wonder who is more likely to respond to a survey? Those that don’t want a Tesco, those that do or those that don’t have an opinion either way?

Relying on duff statistics must make the Tesco people wet themselves with glee.

Planning Meeting:

Planning Officer: Opinion in the town, based on this shoddy survey says you’ll only get 7% of consumers in your store.

Tesco Man: Yes, which is vindication of our belief that Tesco does not cause other smaller shops to close down

Planning Officer: That’s logical, and so if you really think it’s worth spending £3m on a store here for that business then that’s your look out chum, planning approved

😀

Ha, Waitrose is for southern plebs. If only you were able to shop at Booths.

Only Booths or Waitrose for me.

I’ve never seen a farmer signing on

You won’t have. Farming has one of the highest suicide rates going.

Farming has one of the highest suicide rates going.

Combined with them being the armed wing of the Tory Party, it’s a shockingly hard life.

it’s a shockingly hard life

It is when you live near them. They’re always out in those bloody tractors of theirs – morning, noon and night Do they not realise some of us have jobs…?

Oh.

The big supermarkets rely totally on the Great British apathy

Or to look at it another way – they offer a service that we want.

Unfortunately I am a proper skint

Tesco express stores are quite handy.

You need to avoid them as some of the prices are quite a bit higher than a regular Tesco! Especially so if it’s adjacent to a student area, 20p extra for milk in the one next to the Ipswich College Halls.

LIVERPOOL ANARCHISTS where picketing the Tescometro at Bold street on Saturday along with Poundland, all about their use of woerkfare people, who get their dole plus other benifits and have to work for 30 hours a week at Tesco etc, for nothing, so free staff and shelf stackers it appears.

They’re a bit late aren’t they? I thought that work/benefits thing got canned months ago.

The work benefits point is interesting given that for a significant majority of employees tesco’s wages result in the employee being eligible for state support. Tescos is a taxpayer funded private company that then engages in massive tax minimising strategies with regard to it’s own tax liability.

Druid…Portobello stopped a Tesco. See Hadleigh in Suffolk too.

crankboy– that is true of all these so called success story corps, all pay low wages that are topped up by the state to ensure a ‘living’ wage– then boast about massive profits !! frigging great this capitalist con trickery

paying their bills late

Also they are probably the only retailer who can have stuff on the shelves, sell it, then benefit from the revenue in sales in there bank before they pay the supplier….. So in effect a loan with interest.

I work in the tissue manufacture industry, we make product for boots, Morrison, sainsbury……. However not Tesco as it was not profitable to make own label product for them as they wanted to drive the cost so we would sell at cost.

Tescos treat their staff fairly well. Their profit is dropping because they are reaching saturation point in the UK, and their overseas empire isn’t doing great(fresh and easy in the USA).

I don’t like them because whenever they move into a town or a high street, it usually spells doom for everyone else.

They wanted to build a large store near to me, even though they already have one not more than two miles away. The locals with shop owners realised this would effect the high street big time, managed to prevent them from getting permission. But they still own the land, and they will be back.

But they only made 1.7billion profit,time to organise a bit of a whip round isn’t it?

I do tescos, the only reason being there’s either Tesco or ASDA in my town and I really don’t want to give my money to WalMart.

Tis true, however. My town used to have a single big store: ASDA and then a humungous Tesco turned up next door, about 2 miles away from another one. The town is mainly now charity shops. 🙁

Oh how I wish we could get a Booths in this area!

Average household income from the farm (ie profit) in 2009/2010 was £32k. Which isn’t that much when you consider they have to work basically ALL the time. 25% of farmers had a household income of below £20k for each the three years before 2010.

Is that really so bad ?
I would guess that most farmers have the farmhouse and Range Rover down as business assets.
20k left after paying for accommodation and transport sounds about right for a manual worker. Or have I missed something ?

As for Tesco, anyone who lets me park in the town centre for free (for up to two hours) and sells at least three different types of vegan milk or two loaves of bread for £2 at 1:00am is providing a useful local service.
It’s a bit like buying bike stuff off the internet. I’ve got this vague idea that it’s not good for local independent shops, but it’s a lot cheaper and more convenient for me and I don’t see it as my responsibility to stop it.

20k left after paying for accommodation and transport sounds about right for a manual worker. Or have I missed something ?

12 hours a day 7 days a week with no holidays?

I think you have a different experience of farmers than me. Most of the ones I know have battered 15 year old normal cars and an even older Defender or Hilux or something.

Is that really so bad ?
I would guess that most farmers have the farmhouse and Range Rover down as business assets.
20k left after paying for accommodation and transport sounds about right for a manual worker. Or have I missed something ?

That the figure is for household income – in most farms the whole family work long hours, not just one farmer.