1 minute read
Before You Go
by 55 North
RETAIL RANDOMS
Tesco has come in for some stick on social media for using cardboard cutouts of produce to fill gaps in the fruit and veg aisle.
The move is the supermarket giant’s answer to the Britain’s rapidly-escalating supply chain crisis, caused by a shortage of HGV drivers and exacerbated by a dearth of pickers and packers on farms and in food processing plants.
Before the Twitter comments predictably degenerated in a pro- or anti-Brexit squabble one wag said that “cardboard asparagus was seen in London and fake carrots spotted in Fakenham”. Another pointed out that “at last the cardboard copper standing in the doorway of the supermarket won’t feel alone”.
The fiendish ploy is not a new one, apparently first surfacing in response to manufacturers downsizing product ranges. This means that a lot of stores are now just too big. Other tactics include devoting entire aisles to packs of beer and filling fridges with bottles of tomato sauce.
Which brings us nicely to another First World problem that puts the asparagus shortage in the shade: should you keep ketchup in the cupboard or the fridge?
Rubbish photos
You might be aware there’s a climate change conference taking place in the UK just now, and it seems everyone and their celebrity photographer are clamouring to get involved.
Better known for capturing the world’s most famous faces – including royal pensioners Her Majesty, The Queen and Her Madge, Madonna – celebrity photographer Rankin has now turned his camera on food waste as COP26 kicks-off in Glasgow.
Dialling up the photography analogies up to 11, Paisley-born snapper Rankin explained: “It’s time we viewed food waste through the same, if not a more dangerous lens, than single-use plastics. “Shooting the plastic bottles out of food waste is my way of bringing this misconception into focus.”
The pictures feature a variety of ingredients including pancakes, cucumbers, strawberries and loaves of bread.
Is it just us, or are the resulting images – which took Rankin and his team more than two weeks to create – just a bit… rubbish?
