Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
TESCO WILL BE put under the microscope by the UK’s new grocery regulator in the latest investigation to stem from the supermarket giant’s massive profit overestimates.
The country’s Grocery Code Adjudicator (GCA) said it was launching a probe into the grocery chain because it had “reasonable suspicion” the company had broken guidelines.
The investigation will focus on the troubled retailer’s relationship with suppliers and will look at whether the company demanded payment in return for better positions on its supermarkets’ shelves.
The GCA will also look at delayed supplier payments linked to penalties for short deliveries and other problems.
Adjudicator Christine Tacon said she had evidence the practices were “not isolated incidents” and they had each involved “a number of suppliers and significant sums of money”.
Third investigation launched
The GCA said the latest investigation stemmed from information that emerged after Tesco overstated its profits by some £263 million (€352 million).
That scandal, which emerged in September, has already triggered investigations from the UK Serious Fraud Office and the country’s Financial Conduct Authority.
Tesco’s chairman has since announced plans to step down and the company took a razor to its costs, closing 43 UK stores and dropping plans to build another 49 outlets.
The company told the BBC it had been working with the GCA and had shared information with the regulator after an internal review, as well as changing how it worked with suppliers.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
All the big supermarket chains do this, just the same as all of them charged hello money and it’s been going on for years.
If an investigation took place here it would make what’s happening in UK look like child’s play! All you have to do is talk to any supplier off the record ( because they are afraid to speak out in fear of loosing business ) and they will tell you the abuse they are subjected to. Purposely delayed payments, money taking off invoices for so many different things & shelf space payments etc etc. Every additional cent that’s extracted from a supplier goes on to the product cost which means the customer pays for it! That’s why we have the most expensive groceries in Europe .
A proper investigation into something in Ireland? Ah come on now, surely you jest.
To begin with we’d have to have a review board to hire a team of consultants who would then decide the terms of reference of the investigation. Then a quango would have to be set up with various failed county councillors put on the board of directors (that fg lad from donegal would be a great lad, sure doesn’t he have retail experience and a week’s experience of being on a board) and then a new tax would have to dreamt up to finance said quango ie. jobs for the boys.
Once everyone was paid and the taxpayer sucked dry it would turn out that the best way to go about it would be to set up a tribunal just to make sure the judges and barristers get their cut. After years of that, nobody would be held accountable and no evidence given at said tribunal could ever be used in a court of law because it might predjudice the trial.
So, long story short… pile of lies, jobs for the boys, taxpayer bled dry, nobody held accountable, it looks like something was done and we continue to be ripped off for groceries.
Sound about right?
This is a worldwide practice not confined to Ireland, and it’s only one of many used by supermarket chains to squeeze suppliers, Ireland is small fry. Some of the other practices are: back-charging exorbitant amounts to a supplier if the supermarket includes a suppliers product in a flyer, catalogue, newspaper or TV advert, the supplier is never asked or told, they only find out when they get the back-charge, for their share, deducted from their invoice payment. If a product runs out of stock, even though they don’t reorder, they charge a massive ransom to get the space back, if the supplier doesn’t pay they sell it to someone else. Back-charging volume rebates if they sell over a certain arbitrary quantity of a suppliers product etc etc. Some of these back charges run into five figures and can cripple a small to medium size business and where the cause of the horse meat scandal.
This was common when I was a manager of a supermarket in the 90s before central distribution. We’d have reps calling offering free food or holidays in exchange for a prominent shelf space eg when goodfellas pizza arrived on the market I got 3 trolleys of frozen groceries to bring home. Nowadays the difference is it’s more cutthroat.
Shit phillius, if you admitted to something like that in Sweden you could still be brought to court under bribery charges. The company that supplied them too. Thank god for good old corrupt Ireland huh? ;)
Shouldn’t Ireland be coordinating with this to undertake a similar investigation here?
Some disgruntled supplier needs to put in a call to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission!
You should do it you seem disgruntled most of the time
@Alan b: There’s so much to be disgruntled about in this country! Merely trying to join the dots for those in public service who seem unwilling to do it themselves!
@Alan b: For the record though, the CCPC would only investigate a complaint from somebody who might have been harmed by uncompetitive behaviour – so a disgruntled supplier. Since I’m not even a Tesco shopper, my complaint would go nowhere!
As above, they are all foul shareholder bowing filth. For example here in Australia. Sunblest bread – Loaf of wholemeal bread $2.60, loaf of White bread $2.20. Half a loaf of wholemeal bread $2.90. Half a loaf of white bread 2.80.
Fitness feckin freaks over here buy half a loaf because they couldn’t possible eat a full one.. They would be ostracized from there Gym/CrossFit/Gluten Free communities.
Which one did I choose? The $0.85 loaf of own brand white bread… Why because if your eating bread who gives a sh%te about carbs, you might as well enjoy the white stuff. Them few calories saved on wholemeal are probably spent instagramming the sh&te out of their lunch/dinner
Jaysus Alan that sound like a lot of effort to work out…my weekly supermarket visits are like a formula one pit stop.
What’s all the fuss about, money talks and BS walks, we humans are very strange creatures
Good man Bertie why give a shit?
I worked in that sector, I’ll tell you what giving a SH it gets you, out the door pal because there is always a que of rats waiting to feed on your carcass, this is why the retailers do what they do, animal farm , we humans suck pal
And all they have to do to keep the regulators at bay is make regular sizeable donations to political parties who are in government, or have a credible chance of becoming a government at some point in the future.
have your say