The real case against Tesco

Corporate success can generally be measured by the size and strength of the campaign to boycott your business. But until very recently there was a remarkable exception to this rule: Tesco. For a supermarket group which now accounts for a remarkable one in every eight pounds taken by retailers in Britain, opposition has been remarkably light. Where are the student demos, the bricks flying through Tesco windows on May Day? Even tapping into www.boycotttesco.com is something of a disappointment; the site was bought up some time ago by a bunch of American libertarians who object to the way loyalty cards are used to spy on our shopping habits — not exactly an issue which excites the British public’s imagination.

But at last, and possibly much to the joy of the egos in Tesco’s boardroom, there is a proper home-grown anti-Tesco campaign. It is called the Tescopoly Alliance and is run by the usual big-brand anti-globalisation groups, including the GMB union, War on Want and the New Economics Foundation. It offers a spirited effort to blame Tesco for global warming, rainforest clearance in Malaysia and the near-extinction of the Sumatran tiger (disappointingly, closer inspection reveals this is not because the dastardly shop has been mincing the beasts for its meat pies, but because some of its foods contain palm oil allegedly obtained from plantations close to where the tigers like to roam). There is also a little portrait of a South African woman outside a wooden hut, her face covered with her hands, who, we are told, makes only £32.50 a fortnight picking Tesco’s pears; and an unsubstantiated claim that Tesco is driving banana prices down to a level at which Costa Rican farmers find it difficult to afford their children’s school fees.

Needless to say, most of Tescopoly’s complaints are spurious. Take the case of the pear-picker paid £32.50