That Ain't Half of It

According to the Times,

"The Trading Standards Institute has called for an overhaul of the national pricing code, and accused Tesco of “grossly exploiting” loopholes through its “fruit and veg pledge”. Tesco is urging its customers to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day to stay healthy with half-price special offers.

But the institute said that Tesco had misled customers because the prices for items featured in the promotion rose sharply just before the offer started. The half-price offer related to the higher prices."

Tesco refuted the claim, with a spokesperson saying: “Any suggestion that we ramp up prices in order to cut them again is the purest nonsense.”

It's not the first time we've had the feeling that Tesco had been a bit creative with it's use of the word "half" - Tesco spokesman Michael Kissman told the Herts Ad last month that:

"Overall, there's a half-and-half split between those who support our proposals and those who don't and the reasons vary hugely. "

Every little, as the ads say, counts - particularly, it would seem, if you've got a knack for creativity with numbers. For our own part, we admit that we've come across a few people locally who were unaware of Tesco's plans, but we have yet to come across anyone who actually supports them.