Feb
18
Second Tesco own brand cheese with English flag
Filed Under Shop watch, Tesco | 1 Comment
Tesco now seem marginally less anti-English than the Co-op.
Second own brand Tesco cheese with the English flag.
Jun
27
Eight supermarkets sign up to help promote Scottish produce
Filed Under Shop watch | Leave a Comment
Please read this article on the Why England needs a parliament website.
With permission, here’s the article.
Well, that’s all fine and dandy. Great for English-hating Scots’ bigots who can’t bear to buy English, as well as people who simply see Scotland as a country alone, with no loyalty due elsewhere. Which it is not.
And I noticed recently that Sainsbury’s and Tesco have changed the packaging on their sausages in England so that you can now buy such delights as "BRITISH Pork Licolnshire sausages".
And I’ve also heard that Tesco is intent on cleansing Englishness out of existence by renaming the (very) few English lines they have as "British" (more here).
There are indications that the major supermarkets have refused to brand English products as English to appease anti-English Scots’ bigots. Read the CEP’s findings here.
When it comes to our anti-English, Scots-biased supermarkets, we personally vote with our wallets and purses.
How about you?
Oct
4
Morrisons shop watch update
Filed Under Morrisons, Shop watch | 4 Comments
A quick recce at Morrisons gives us enough labelling inconsistency to compile a letter and get in touch.
Morrisons are another supermarket chain who are really pushing the Britishness angle on their labelling. The Union Flag is everywhere but there are some areas where particularly Scottish goods are identified and promoted above Welsh, English or Northern Irish items.
Please excuse the dreadful photo quality.
Meat
Dairy
Morrisons seem very keen to support Scottish farmers… but no-one else.
The only sign of the Cross of St George was on the milk (see below) but no sign of the Welsh or Northern Irish flags.
Sep
30
Sainsbury’s Reply
Filed Under Sainsbury's, Shop watch | Leave a Comment
Following on from last month’s Shop Watch, we sent an offical letter to Sainsbury’s detailing the problems in labelling policy that we, and you guys who helped out, had found. The letter detailed our complaints and why we think it matters, backed up with photographic evidence! We’ve now recieved a reply, although to be honest it doesn’t really address the issues. So we may be writing back to push the point. Anyway, here is what they had to say
Thank you for your recent letter on behalf of the Fair Flags Campaign. I am sorry that you feel we do not label our products from the United Kingdom fairly. I can appreciate how concerned you must be.
We take our product labellung very seriously and review the information on our packaging, to ensure it is as clear and honest as possible. We have been committed to supporting British farming for over 130 years and our policy remains to buy British wherever we can. Of our food that can be produced in the UK, we source over 90% from Britain. Indeed we sell over £6 billion worth of British food every year. We also stock over 3,500 locally produced products.
The products we use are sometimes purchased from a number of approved sources. This means that the actual country of origin may vary throughout the course of the year, depending on availability and other factors.
I have passed your feedback onto my colleagues in our labelling team. They have assured me they are confident that our products are labelled to meet all legal requirements. That said, I am sure they will take your comments into consideration when next reviewing our packaging.
Thank you once again for taking the time to contact us and let us know your observations. We welcome all feedback as it helps us improve our products for our customers
So no answers to the specific questions we raised, but at least we have some recognition, and I assure you we will continue to push our point.
Sep
23
Is Sainsbury’s Listening At Last?
Filed Under Sainsbury's, Shop watch | 1 Comment
We have been told that following letters of complaint and an exchange of replies, Sainsbury’s phoned the complainer and informed her that the issue could be raised at the next marketing board meeting.
Although Fair Flags claims no credit for this independent initiative, I hope our offical letter to Sainsbury’s is something that will come to their attention at the meeting.
Now is the time to push Sainsbury’s as the meeting may be this week! We have all the contact details here or fill out a complaint form at your local branch. Please mention Fair Flags if you can, an organised campaign should encourage them to change more than a series of individuals. Also don’t be fobbed off with a standard corporate reply, keep on pushing that complaint.
Even if this drive isn’t succesful it shows they listen to your complaints. So your work is not in vain, if they don’t change now, maybe they will listen next time!
Sep
15
This month’s Shop Watch is on Morrisons. If your local supermarket is a Morrisons and you’d like to help us, please keep an eye out for how they label their food. Anything with flags on, or listing country of origin is interesting to us. We’d like photographs, but stories and observations are welcome too. So please help us by commenting below or sending anything you have, good or bad, to examples[at]fairflags.org.uk.
We have a letter on its way to Sainsbury’s at the moment following last month’s efforts. In a month’s time we’ll be contacting Morrisons. So we need your help now! Thanks.
Aug
8
Let’s try something new today… shop watch!
Filed Under Shop watch | 7 Comments
Each month we’re going to focus our efforts on one supermarket chain. Starting this August with Sainsbury’s.
We invite readers to submit reports or pictures of any instances of flag and labelling inequality. If there are any particularly glaring examples it would be useful if you could note the bar code number.
At the end of the month we’ll compile a report and contact Sainsbury’s directly and ask their views.
Update
August is disappearing rapidly so – last call for any reports from Sainsbury’s!
Several comments have pointed out how important it is to offer praise where praise is due. So if you’re in Sainsbury’s over the next couple of days let us know what they are doing right. That way we can come at them from both angles.
Update 2
Right well, we’re obviously behind schedule on the letter writing front – but it is happening in the background. We’re not going to be too harsh on ourselves for lagging behind a deadline as we can only work on Fairflags as time allows.
If anyone feels like helping out and has the inclination to get more involved please get in touch.
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