Quote Mintball="Mintball"And countless other ruses.
Many of which are detailed in Joanna Blythman's [iShopped: The shocking power of Britain's supermarkets[/i.
In essence, it's easy for them to get away with a lot because the major supermarket chains have at least 80% of the entire UK retail grocery market.
And some of what they do is just bonkers.
Blythman recounts stories told to her by farmers, such as the farmer who grew Worcester Pearmain apples – and had his crop rejected by one supermarket because they were 'too pear-like'. Well, durr: the clue is in the name of this old variety (introduced in UK in 1874), you f¨ckwitted imbecile.
Or the farmer who grew potatoes and was told to grow a slightly bigger one the following year. She did so – only to be told they were then too big, and were rejected. She fed the whole lot to animals and withdrew from dealing with any supermarkets, working to get herself involved in the developing farmers' market scene.'"
I think it was Blythman's book where I got the info originally.
In passing, I made a rare visit to a supermarket last week ... Sainsbury's.
On the one hand I was pleasantly surprised at the number of different English apple varieties on offer but, on the other hand, I couldn't compare the unit prices of the same oranges in different packages. Even with a pocket calculator it would have been impossible, one was so many oranges per pack and one was so-much per kilo, without knowing the weight of one orange you'd be stumped.
I had plenty of time and had a good wander round, just out of interest/curiosity/nosiness, looking at ingredients and suchlike.
Many ready meals contain ingredients that not only do you not have in your store-cupboard at home ... but Sainsbury's don't sell them as separate ingredients either.
At least, I didn't see any tubs of bi and triglycerides of fatty acids in the baking section.
I bought a net of oranges and a packet of Taylor's coffee and left.
Speaking, as we were, of Tesco ... I never set foot in that place these days, I simply don't trust them.