Watch out for Tesco's Value

pjala

Riblet wrote:

And so the Tesco bashing continues...

<snipped all sorts of bits>
Regarding labelling... Again, it's sometimes done incorrectly. I agree that labels should be more consistant. Not just in the "£x.xx per 100g" thing, but also in the descriptions on the labels. Again, Tesco have many people who enter this information onto the pricing system; it's not a simple job, and sometimes people make mistakes. One mistake about a year ago on pricing cost the company £10million.

I am really intrigued now...
Are you saying that it is incompetence that drives the errors of value versus own brand? I must admit, I don't really understand what the difference is between the two then, bearing in mind that the so called own brand is usually rebranded!

What was the pricing error that cost them £10 million? Was it the beef in gravy thing? Please tell, I promise I wont tell Tesco who said it!

Cheers.

pietlow

I agree with you but to help me decide I weigh out a quantity of loose fruit and work out the cost per kg and comapre to find best value.

filigree wrote:

People used to write to the Sainsbury's magazine and complain about their pricing, the situation hasn't improved but they've stopped publishing complaint letters. Hmm.

It is annoying if you want to find out if a 1kg bag of apples is cheaper than loose apples that are priced individually. I don't care what Sainsbury's say, they do NOT have universal labelling on their fresh produce and it is difficult to compare price per kg.

I can't get excited about the fuss over imperial vs metric measurements. I don't care if we weigh our veg in oojiewotsits, so long as the shops are honest in displaying the weights and prices.

andysue1

Tescoes meat pies, 3 in a pack 98p
Tescoes meat pie single 30p!!!!!!
Keep an eye out its not always cheaper to buy in bulk.

mac48b

I used to work for a large company that made soap for all the supermarkets Tesco's, Sainsbury's, Safeway, Co-op etc and themselves but there own one was the dearest this was because they new what ingredients went into the others and so made there own better (so they believed) but if one of the supermarket ones was good enough for you why buy one of the better one, my point here is how does the quality of the choices compare, perhaps the value one happens to use better quality ingredients than the normal one.

Miss_Cocoa

Don't get too excited - Tesco Value soya milk is organic so still, in my opinion, a better buy than the non-organic, sweetened one with vitamins. And it's the same price too . . .

SKIPPY

y-fronts wrote:

Instead of complaining about pennies try saving pounds. Shop at tesco.com pay £3.99 for delivery and use a E-Voucher for £15.00 off for £100 of groceries or an extra 1000 points which you then sell on e-bay. Also have more than 1 clubcard so you can always use an E-Voucher.Don,t pay for the knowledge of these vouchers from ebay just search on the Web. Having worked in retail for 30 years you will always be over charged. Also all these companies that offer you discount to open a store card Take them up on it and when you get your first statement pay it off. REMEMBER NEVER PAY FULL PRICE EVERYBODY WILL COME DOWN IN PRICE . :T

Having read most of these threads it appears that people seem to get sent more e-vouchers than I do from Tesco - or have I not read enought threads and is there somewhere else you get them from. In three years I think I've only had one!!!

Justamum

wonka wrote:

One thing that a lot of people don't realise with these 'Value' products (and Asda's smartprice) is that in some of the food items, they use Trans-fats to prolong the shelf life. In prolonging the shelf-life, this reduces the supermarkets' costs enormously, and hence they can sell it very cheaply.

There is an increasing awareness that long-term consumption of Trans fats is one of the main causes of heart disease. It was reported on Trevor McDonald's Tonight programme on 24-Feb (http://www.itv.com/news/tonight_683896.html). Also, see http://www.tfx.org.uk/ if you're still not convinced. Have you wondered why M & S are in the process of totally banning this ingredient? (http://www2.marksandspencer.com/thecompany/trustyour_mands/fats.shtml). They aim to be free of it this summer. Tesco are proposing a ban on their own brand goods, but will still sell it from other food manufacturers.

To see if trans-fats are used in a product, check the ingredients list for 'Hydrogenated vegetable oil/fat' or 'Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil/fat'.

Just as an example, Asda smartprice sell a 200g chocolate bar for 48p. The equivalent bar is sold by Cadbury on the same shelf for £1.34. How? Because the asda bar is full of trans fats, not because they take less profit.

Any food manufacturer that includes this hideous ingredient cares more for their profits than their customers' health.

They used sulphites too which are unpleasant. The Christmas before last I thought I would buy rather than make my own puddings so I bought two Tesco Value Christmas Puddings and we had one on Christmas Day. It repeated on me all day on Boxing Day - it was disgusting. I chucked the other one in the bin and went back to making my own. Their Value jams have them in too. Recently on the Richard Hammond BBC1 programme "Should I worry about?" he featured the value jam versus the normal jam. The value jam is full of colourings to make it look more palatable. I very rarely shop in Tescos now because I find it more expensive and too busy - I feel my blood pressure rising as I go in the door! The only thing that is cheaper are the organic carrots when I compare them to my more local supermarket.

The other week in our local (Isle of Man Shoprite) supermarket I noticed that my usual soya milk had gone up twice in recent weeks from 69p to 89p a litre. Another type was reduced from 99p to 69p so I bought a few of them. The discount wasn't shown on my receipt so I queried it got the reduction, but noticed when I went in the next day that the price ticket on the shelf had gone and it is now full price when you buy it.

Riblet

calleyw wrote:

I agree that lies and half truths and falsehoods do no good to anyone.

But lets be honest all supermakets be it Tescos/Sainsburys/Asda etc etc are all after one thing. The money in my pocket.

I totally agree. They are a business after all...

calleyw wrote:

I mean it is like BOGOF's I have known for year that they are funded by the manufactures and not the supermarkets. They way the treat suppliers is not always nice.

Not true, at least, not as true these days. You say you've known this "for years", so maybe things have changed. I was speaking to a rep who works for the people who make those Dr. Oetker frozen pizzas a few weeks back (I speak to a lot of reps from companies like this). He wanted to know how the lines were doing, what other frozen pizzas we sell, if we can get hold of the stock okay etc. etc... Anyway, we got chatting, and the subject went onto a offer which was running on the pizzas recently. I believe the offer was buy 2 for £x.xx or something. He told me that Tesco actually sponsored the offer, on thier own back, his company didn't even ask for this, Tesco just went ahead and slapped an offer on there. It actually made his firm a lot of money due to increased orders and didn't cost them a penny as they didn't lower any prices. Tesco often do this to 'kick start' new or poor selling lines.

It's a common misconception that Tesco and Co are out there to just screw suppliers all the time. Without suppliers, the shelf would be empty, the customers would walk away and Tesco would be bankrupt -- it's rare these days to see a "Supplier dispute" show up as a reason for Tesco being out of stock of something (last time I personally saw this was over 18 months ago). A report out by some body or other (the name escapes me, but I think it was a regulator) about a year ago said Tesco and Co were "Firm, but fair with suppliers" -- I only remember hearing this on the radio, so I may be mistaken. Sometimes deals are done with the suppliers, which makes the supplier drop the price... But if you drop the price per item by 10p (for example) and you send up selling an extra 5,000 units to Tesco, then it's in everyone's best interests to make that deal. Suppliers have a bigger say then you think. Overall, consumers have the biggest say, of course.

calleyw wrote:

I will bash any supermarket if I think they deserve it. For what ever reason. But you can see why Tescos are getting bashing on this. Value products are suppose to cheaper then the next level up. But if they charging more for value products then they are for next level up it makes me go

Agreed. Like I say, it's a mistake. Tesco are not out there to con you.

calleyw wrote:

I have to agree with someone else. Labels should be standard it is is either per KG or per 100g. To say that is because different people produce the info is both lazy and sloppy. If they are working from the same standards this would not be happening.

To a point... yes. It should be the case that things like 40g single chocolate bars should be in the per 100g, and things like big tins of dog food should be per kilo and toilet roll should be in the 'per sheet' (or per sht, as someone said :rotfl: )... Tesco get this right most of the time, but not all the time, sadly.

pietlow wrote:

I am really intrigued now...
Are you saying that it is incompetence that drives the errors of value versus own brand? I must admit, I don't really understand what the difference is between the two then, bearing in mind that the so called own brand is usually rebranded!

Not imcompetence, per say... more a lack of communication as the company is so big... When you have 1,000s of empolyees, things get difficult to organise. This is the main reason why mistakes happen, 'cos person A forgot to mention something to person B who then had to pass it down to persons C D E and F, person F should've then done something on a computer, and person D should've send an e-mail out to persons G H I J K... Stores have been hit hard recently by offers not working on tills, or not printing point of sale due to !!!!-ups by head office. But this is improving as stores constantly complain about it.

It's the same with the buyers. Buyer A buys all the value stuff, Buyer B buys all the normal stuff (This is very simplified). Buyer A knows how well Value stuff goes along the business, s/he knows how much to buy, and at what price. The profit margin on Value products is TINY, so the buyer needs to know what's going on. Buyer B knows his/her stuff when it comes to buying normal products, but maybe Buyer B made a mistake on Orange Juice, and brought too much for the business... Buyer B gets a telling off, and the business has to drop the price in order to sell the line, and it happens to get cheaper than the Value for a while... The obvious solution is to raise the price of the normal line by a few pence, but then Tesco loose out competetively, and Tesco are left with a lot of excess stock they can't shift...

I remember one manager I spoke to in an Express site had a hell of a time over Christmas as the buyer of milk massively increased the orders of milk, but didn't factor in the impact of Express sites (which are tiny convience stores, in case you don't know). He barely had space to store the milk, and ended up throwing a lot of it away when it went out of date. It's a simple mistake for a buyer to make, but simple mistakes can cost money and loose customers in the longer run.

This is the number one reason that prices drop when they shouldn't, and why the 2x500g raisions are cheaper than the 1kg packet. Just to proove this point... Next time you are in Tesco Express (if you have one nearby), check out the Tesco Finest Belgian chocolates. They are currently going for around £5.xx. Keep your eye on that line, they are going on promotion soon, as Express sites are badly struggling with the extra stock brought for them over Christmas, and again over Easter. If something isn't done to shift that line, it'll go out of date before it's all sold through.

And yes, it's true. Often products are simply re-branded... Take La Doria products for example, they are made in the same factory as Tesco Value products, and are the same product, for all intents and purposes. You won't see many La Doria products around. If you see them outside of a Tesco store, it's likely that Tesco own that store, or own the stores parent company (One Stop/Dillions/Nite&Day/Supercigs stores, for example)

Someone, I forget who, made the point of prices being different across stores/locations/communities. Let's take a simplified example here, and see why...

There is a Metro store in Norwhich (for example). Being a Metro, it's in the middle of town, it's fairly big for what it is, and it's very busy. This Metro tries it's hardest to offer everything a supermarket can, but ultimately cannot due to it's size being smaller than a supermarket. This Metro offers your typical run of the mill products, Tesco and branded products, and a few value products. The base price here for orange juice 330ml bottles (for example) is, let's say 40p (it's not, but I cannot remember the price right now).

There is another Metro store. This one is in the middle of a yuppee area of London. Everyone and his/her other half drives either a BMW or a Merc. Housing costs £500,000 for just a one bedroom flat, and the streets are paved with gold. Being where this store is, it has to do two things: 1) Change what it sells and 2) Change the price of what it sells.

It changes what it sells due to the nature of the customer. These people eat caviar for breakfast, and are not interested in Value products. So the Value products are out, we have normal Tesco products, and we now have Finest taking more space in the shop. Tesco have to charge more because the staff there are also posh toffs, and therefore require what's known as 'location pay', as they live in the middle of London, which is an expensive area to live in. Tesco don't have much in the way of depots for stock in the middle of London, so a lorry has to travel further, and has to pay Mr Livingston's Congestion Charge... Up goes the price again. The Metro in London needs more security guards, as the crime rate is probably higher as well, up goes the price again. This means our 40p bottle of Orange Juice now costs us 43p, and sitting next to it is Finest freeshly squeezed, at over £1 for the same amount of liquid. The Finest line sells better than the cheaper one, and the stock controller is considering getting rid of the cheaper line as nobody ever buys it...

So yes, depending where you live accounts for how much you have to pay. Again, Tesco is not trying to con you, they are trying to make a profit, they have no interest in rising the 'community price' of goods (what advantage does this bring anyone?), but have to charge more in the centre of London. I used to visit London regularly when I was younger, and was shocked to see the prices nearly doubled when I got into the city compared to my home town.

neilscot39

I find you have to be very careful in Tesco's these days, You would think buying bigger is cheaper, not so, i have often bought things, like for instance caramel wafer biscuits where it has been cheaper buy up to 15p, to buy to six packs opposed to one twelve pack! also I am boycotting Tesco at the moment as I am disgusted that they are charging £5 more than Asda for the King Kong DVD and thats without Asda doing any special offers on it.
Another thing I have often complained about to staff in Tesco is when they have a special offer on an item, lets say a particular sort of cup-a-soup for instance we will call it Martins cup-a soup, in small writing on the offer sign it might say, offer includes, Tomato, mushroom, Chicken., they put the special offer signs beside it and another maybe beside Martins Special Cup-a-soup with croutons which isn't on offer but because you see a sign Martins cup-a-soup on offer you automatically think its that one! and buy the product not realising unless you check your receipt you have just paid the full price as that item was not in the offer even although there was a sign right under it... Check your local Tesco and I bet you will see this! :mad:
False economy maybe, me boycotting tesco as my nearest asda is 15 miles away, but i just shop less often and treat the outing to asda as a sort of break (sad or what)






UOTE=Elven_Princess]Whilst shopping in Tesco's lately I have noticed that they appear to be playing a nasty game. Several items were packaged as "Value" products, you therefore expect them to be the cheapest. However I saw a couple of things that were the same price as their standard products.

E.g. Value 1 litre Unsweetened Soya Milk - 65p
Tesco Brand 1 litre Sweetened Soya Milk with Calcium and vitamins - 65p

I even saw mouthwash where the Value one was 1p MORE expensive than their standard bottle. We are talking the same quantity here too. I checked the ingredients and the active ones were the same.

Another trick is with their labels. Their standard products were priced per 100ml or per litre etc but the value products were marked per item, making it really difficult to compare value.

E.g. Tesco "Weetbix" marked as £ per 100g
Tesco Value "Weetbix" marked as xp per biscuit.

This is all designed to trick us and make it more difficult to shop well. I am really cross about this as we are all trying to be careful with where we spend our money and we would naturally assume that by buying Value products we are being as thrifty as possible, when really we might be getting a substandard quality product for the same or MORE than Tesco's standard product!

Keep your eyes peeled and make sure that you check those prices before buying!!!!

[/QUOTE]

Justamum

Riblet - fruit and veg would be much cheaper if farmers didn't have a huge proportion of their produce rejected because it wasn't pretty enough. So in reality supermarkets are screwing the supplier because all their hard work counts for nothing. Supermarkets demand a high level of perfection in shape and size - but flavour seems to be not an issue for them. Personally I would prefer to buy food that actually has some flavour. I couldn't care less if it's not a uniform shape - it's not entering a beauty contest is it?