Possibly this should go in off topic or something but economic activity is at least partially related to Peak Oil.
Tesco has seen a decline in its underlying third quarter sales in the UK, with the supermarket chain blaming a weaker market for groceries.
I mean, how is there a weaker demand? Are people eating less? There are more people month on month so even if people just ate the same amount, surely grocery demand has increased!
I am surprised though that Tesco sales are down, the stores always seem packed (I don't go often, just now and again) and the stuff as cheap as chips.
Maybe people really are buying less exotic food and bulking up with lower profit margin staple foods. Totally guessing I know nothing much about retail.
For some reason, probably related to greed and lack of education amongst shareholders and owners, supermarkets expect their turnover and profits to increase over time without fail. And not just yearly but quarterly and, quite possibly, monthly or weekly for all I know.
It's a disaster and headline news when they don't, like it's the end of the world.
I stopped buying in supermarkets over a decade ago, so Te$co, don't blame me.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
I find it fascinating, I attempted to dabble in stocks and shares a few years ago and failed miserably, so I already know I'm crap at predicting these things, and I believe it's mostly luck when people get it right anyway.
But still, I'd like to see their estimate of stock lost to theft and sales lost to (even) cheaper rivals.
Wasn't it someone from Tepco who was (shurely "Tesco" _ed) last year saying that increasing poverty among the least-well-off was eating (hah!) into their profits because people were going to food banks instead?
And, since then, hasn't Tesco started out on a load of food-bank-related "charitable" activity?
RenewableCandy wrote:
And, since then, hasn't Tesco started out on a load of food-bank-related "charitable" activity?
Yes
They're working with FareShare and the Trussel Trust. There are other local charities inolved in our local store's activity, including Red Cross and Blytheswood. Tesco contribute an additional 30% to anything donated. From my (sketchy) understanding of average retail margins, I'm guessing this equates to them supplying the food bought and donated by customers roughly at cost.
Regarding their sales figures, it was reported on the news this morning that they are suffering from being the "squeezed middle", losing market share to Lidl and Waitrose at the lower and upper ends of the market respectively. I see this as an unbelievably ironic reflection of the way our society is becoming polarised, more and more towards the "have nots" and the "have yachts".
clv101 wrote:That's a good observation - both budget and luxury labels in many markets seem to be doing okay
Mirrors the world generally, don't it?
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
I'm sure it's partly a have-not and have-yacht (I like that!) thing.
But you don't have to be super-rich to shop at Waitrose. If you buy the same basket of goods at all the retailers, roughly a week's shopping for a family of four, it consistently comes out at about £8-12 more expensive at Waitrose than at Asda. That's a huge difference when you're struggling to get by, but if you're a commuter who buys lattes in paper cups every morning, it's only equivalent to your weekly coffee budget.
Some of the growth at the more expensive end of the food market – both trading up to retailers such at Waitrose and M&S and trading up within retailers to the luxury ranges – seems to be coming from elsewhere. Comfort buying, of sorts.
In 2008, when consumers were suddenly feeling broke and worried, they stopped eating out at restaurants. M&S hit on a winner of an idea: they launched a 'Dine in for £10' deal – two courses for two people and a bottle of wine. People went mad for it, and M&S gained a load of new occasional food shoppers.
I think it's the same thing. We don't go out for dinner any more, we're not going on holiday… but hang on, we shop at Waitrose and we buy Finest mince pies, so PHEW, thought we were buggered for a minute but we can't be!
(By the way, this isn't evidence of an unhealthy obsession with supermarket shopping – I've just done a fair bit of work for a food industry mag in the past five years.)
Yes, of course. I doubt anyone here would disagree with that - but we're the lucky ones.
Many people are now three or four generations into being unable to cook or grow food. To take the example of my own family, my grandmother, widowed with five children, supported them by working night shifts at a canning factory and fed them with canned food. There was no cooking, everyone was fat and unhealthy, and she died a horrible diabetic death.
My mother, the youngest of the five, vowed to escape that fate. She taught herself to cook, went veggie and developed an interest in organic food. Way to rebel, ma! The other four didn't do that, and so I have cousins and second cousins who not only can't make healthy, additive-free food but can't enjoy it even when someone else makes it.
How do you even begin to reverse that, when it's four generations ingrained? Most schools barely teach cooking any more, and when they do it's 'food tech' and optional. Even when I went to school all we learnt to cook was (tinned) tomato soup and cake!
There used to be funding for cooking lessons for new parents who were struggling to cope. One of my friends was referred to a course by social services, which was terrifying for her at first but soon took her from zero knowledge to being able to cook five basic meals and, crucially, make sense of a cookbook. She was very grateful and it was a great service, but it reaches only a tiny minority of people - if it still exists.
This topic depresses me more than any other, I think. I just can't see how it's going to get better. At this rate, when manufactured food dries up, these people are going to starve. It's all very well the Jamie Olivers of the world muttering about big TVs and handfuls of clams, but money is only one part of the problem.
£10 a week sounds very low - a product of industrial pharming. I very much doubt you can buy sufficient nutrients for so little and you're probably turning yourself into a toxic repository.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
