Fake Tesco farms

 

I was reading a marketing training guide the other day and it said “Customers expect brands to be open, honest and authentic. They are increasingly interested in understanding provenance and are much more marketing-savvy than they used to be. Brands must be as clear as they can be, to avoid confusing customers in any way”.

Well, I do not think that anyone from Tesco’s marketing department has been on this course or indeed, any other marketing course.

Actually, having had second thoughts about this, quite possibly I’m wrong and they have all been sent on a training programme entitled “How to be as economical with the truth as possible”.

Tesco’s you see, have a range of branded farms with quintessentially rural sounding British names, such as Nightingale farms, Willow farms, Woodside farms and Redmere farms. Oh, that’s nice – supporting British farmers.

But you really don’t have to dig that deep to find out that these farms are completely 'fictional' farm brands. Yep – these farms do not actually exist.

Let me give you an example. Below is a photo of a label from a packet of Tesco Garlic from Redmere farms. Turn it over however, and you will see that it has been sourced from China!

Now, is this a little “un-truth”, a fib or a full-blown lie. Well, I am not certain – but it sure as hell is not squeaky clean is it?   

The other thing that Tesco has started to use is the phrase “Trusted farms”. This term means what? Trusted to be cheap as chips? Trusted to keep shelves full, whatever the cost to the animal?  It certainly does not have any legal definition when applied to animal welfare.

The ham joint in the photograph does not even have a country of origin written on it. But that’s OK folks, because after all, it is from a trusted farm.

I will leave you to make up your own mind about this marketing ploy. But I just want you and Tesco to know, that I most certainly did not buy either the ham or the garlic.