What Tesco Really Wants

An article about Tesco's new wine selection in The Guardian today shows the supermarket in its true colours. When talking to local people about new stores, Tesco makes a big play of meeting unmet consumer demand and benefiting the wider local economy. Yet, when talking about its new wine range, the company is unabashed in its desire to simply clobber the competition. Tesco is quoted as saying,

"some customers are not buying wine from us - they're going to a wine merchant or one of our competitors"

How dare they! They need to be persuaded to spend less money there and more money in Tesco. Unfortunately, this isn't going to be good for other wine suppliers.

In St Albans, there are a number of specialist off-licences and wine shops within a few minutes walk of the proposed Tesco store, including the excellent Grapeland in Victoria Street. But competition is good, you say? The problem is that if small specialist retailers are put out of business by Tesco, there will eventually be little choice but to go to Tesco for wine!