I like chocolate and I love a deal. My friend Katie knows both of these things and because she's a friend she phoned to brag about a deal she had spotted at Tesco.Lindt 70% dark chocolate is my favourite, at Tesco 100g costs £1.29. Displayed right next to it is a bar called 'Divine'. The price on the shelf is 54p but in fact when scanned at the checkout it sold at 51p.
Divine is different from Lindt. It's a Fairtrade bar. The Fairtrade cocoa beans are from Ghana and the farmers own part of the company www.divinechocolate.com .
So Tesco sell Divine for 51p. Sainsbury's and Waitrose also sell this ethical Divine chocolate - but for 79p. That's 65% more expensive.
So who's profiting? The cocoa farmers are getting a guaranteed Fairtrade price of $1600 per tonne for the cocoa, then there are shipping, manufacturing, wholesale, marketing, transport costs and VAT at the shop.
I wonder what the supermarkets pay for a 100g bar? Tesco can't be selling for a loss at 51p and I really hope Sainsbury's and Waitrose aren't pocketing the extra from the 79p they charge. Perhaps they pay more for the bars (The Ghanaian farmers own part of the company too remember).
The Taste Test Oh, and I can feel a warm glow while I'm eating the chocolate because I'll be helping those Ghanaian farmers.
2 comments:
I’d noticed this sort of silly pricing on teabags. (£1.42 for 80 bags but £3.85 for 160!!!)
A friend who works for a well known food brand pointed out that there was currently a huge advertising battle between Asda and Tesco and that they were making huge cuts (and possibly selling at a loss) just to out-PR each other on TV – you know the old ‘Tesco are cheapest on 1,000 lines, not bad, but Asda are cheapest on a massive 4,000 products’.
Apparently its all being driven by www.mysupermarket.co.uk which if you take a peak you’ll see some of the higher priced products that Tesco are selling to subsidise their TV campagain.
Which would explain why Tesco has subsequently reduced the Divine price to 49p (larger stores only). Asda are selling at 50p - so that's another price Tesco can claim to be cheaper on. I doubt Divine is a big seller nationally, so its a price cut which boosts Tesco's claim, but doesn't actually cost them much.
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