Did Tesco try to poison me?

“Maybe they’re going to poison you,” a friend helpfully suggested when I wondered why Tesco had asked me to lunch. Sure we never have a good word to say about Tesco (see here, here, here…)

The event, held at lunchtime in the Burlington Hotel, was to sample some of Tesco’s own-brand Irish products. The supermarket were highlighting how much money you can save by switching to own-brand products. Of course, the same dictum applies to Dunnes, Superquinn, and SuperValu: own-brand products are cheaper. If you want to save money on your shopping, own brand will help a lot, not a little.

As for Tesco’s own-brand products? In fairness, they weren’t remotely poisonous. Some of them weren’t bad, and others were surprisingly delicious. Tesco’s own brand sausages and rashers are great, they were selling Tesco Finest free range chickens for €7, and the vegetables from a farm in north county Dublin were very good too. Their cakes were grand, if you like that sort of thing, but you’ll get better quality at the same price in Superquinn and M&S.

I’d be the first to pick up a free range chicken for €7, but I do some niggling concerns about the incredibly low price being paid to producers while Tesco enjoys bumper profits in the Republic.

While it was great to see Tesco promoting their inclusion of Irish products, they’ve also removed many Irish brands from the shelves in recent years – Tesco still trail some way behind other retailers, including SuperValu and Aldi, in stocking Irish products.

Current specials at Tesco include half price champagne, chocolates and cheap Valentine’s cards. “I love you dear, just not that much…” Click here to see them all.