Price Wars: Does the UK's Tesco use Racial and Stereotypical Profiling to Divide and Conquer its Customers?

My household recently resolved to go on an anti-candida diet. For those of you who don't know, that means eating nothing but wholewheat foods, including flour, pasta, bread  - everything as well as avoiding any added sugar. It's a pain in the butt when it comes to shopping at the supermarket with this in mind.

Let's not even talk about how much of our canned foods, flours and milk have added sugar, yeast, acids and chemicals as preservatives - (check out your ingredients for added sugar and you'll get a nasty surprise).

If you've ever looked at the label of a store bought product you'll know how tough it is to buy anything these days that doesn't have added sugar, salt etc.

So, armed with a shopping list and a mission, I ambled off to Tesco - a UK super-giant, supermarket chain.

But it wasn't to do my shopping in the usual way, it was to do research.

I wanted to see how many of the necessary healthy products I could find on the shelves of Tesco before I looked elsewhere. I figured if I could actually source most things at the local Tesco, then my life might be a little easier and a little less expensive.

I emerged two-and-a-half hours later with a totally different and unhappy perspective on how I think Tesco organises the products on its shelves according to racial and other stereotypes.

It occurred to me that supermarkets are super at profiling shoppers in their area. They assume they'll behave a particular way and then capitalise on that behaviour, even encourage it and train shoppers like rats in the lab maze. Let me explain.

I thought I could just go to the baking section and find all the flours and baking products, right? Nope. Wholemeal bread flour I found in the home baking  section - and paid 1.72 Pounds for 1.5 kgs.

But I much later made my way over to the section where "World Foods" (yes that's what they call it here) and pasta is, and found all the ingredients for Indian breads - chapatti flour and the like right next to it; very far away from the home baking section.

That might not be such a big deal except I suddenly noticed a 5 kg bag of wholemeal flour for 6.50. Huh? Why isn't THAT in the baking section. It's a cheaper deal and totally relates to home baking. (in fairness it's a few pence more expensive for 1.5 kg bags).


I wouldn't normally be looking in both sections if I were shopping in an ordinary way - just going in and buying what was on the list as quickly as possible. If I wanted to bake bread, I would go to the home baking section. Chapatti is bread though. So who would think to look there unless you're always fossicking in the 'World  food' section? 


Maybe it's just a one-off? Nope.

Many of the products and ingredients have been separated out in a similar way. If the product is mainstream enough, say couscous (1.39/1 kg, Tesco Brand ), it's in with the rice and you pay an ordinary price for a good amount.

But as soon as you move into Quinoa (1.69/300g) and other grains - they're smaller packets hived off in the health food section. (Incidentally I bought a 1kg bag of Quinoa from a small wholefoods store at 4.75 pounds - significantly cheaper).

What about spices? The worst offender. 


I went to the aisle where there is the usual range of curry spices and everything under the sun, only to be more than slightly annoyed when I found large curry powder packets at a much better price in the "World' food section. 


Take this for example: In the World Food section,  I can buy 100 grams of ground coriander for 49p, the same amount of Garam Masala  for 99p - an amazing deal. Wander over to the aisle actually labelled 'Spices' and this is what you get: 


Tesco Brand (in a jar):
Ground Coriander - 75p/37g
Garam Masala - 1.19/38g

Try another brand?
Schwartz Garam Masala refill (packet not jar)
1.38/31g
Schwartz (in a jar)
Ground Coriander - 1.45/28g
They're tiny amounts by comparison for much more money. 


How about dried chickpeas?
Indus Chickpeas in 'World Food' section - 1.99/2kg
Tesco Brand in a separate section (health food section) - 99p/500g - Four times more expensive

I started to wonder if Tesco could charge people different prices for different amounts by assuming that people who were interested in specific foods might shop in a particular section.


Those people may not notice how much more expensive it is compared to the same product elsewhere in the store. Or if they do notice that the product replicates itself, they're not interested in traversing the massive store to compare prices. 


Why else would they be separated? We are used to some brands being more expensive than others, so why not just lump them all together? Is this a push by Tesco to make it's brands more 'in your face' regardless of whether they're cheaper or not? Or are they threatened by companies that have better prices - wanting to make sure only the customers who demand those prices notice the difference?

Or what if Tesco is making assumptions about people's buying habits based on racial background?

For example, someone who cooks Indian food a lot at home, perhaps it's the tradition, will go to the Indian food section and buy the Chapati or whole flour in bulk for a price they would expect is reasonable, especially if they've become used to paying it at other Indian speciality stores. They would be unwilling to pay more, or wouldn't see it as such a good deal.

Well, now I'm the one making the assumptions  - but the question remains why separate and segregate the products based on cultural and sterotypical lines when they're essentially the same thing?

Those perceived to be health conscious get grouped in the same way. If you want the flours such as brown rice flower or Soya flour you have to go to the health food section - a totally separate specialist food section where you can't compare the prices and see if you're paying a lot for the privilege. You're the Type 'A' or Type 'B' shopper that's likely to end up in that aisle, who will pay more if they think they have to pay a premium for 'healthy' food.


No coincidence that it's where all the healthy cereal is as well.


But why not group all of the baking, grains and spice products and so on next to each other? We're used to the little labels that show prices displaying the amount by grams and helping us choose the best price  - why not just do that with everything?


Supermarkets stereotyping people isn't out of the question when you consider the way their product arrangement has changed over the years. There's a real science to it.

You've probably noticed an occasional massive rearrangement of shelves that's left you wandering aimlessly around what were once familiar aisles, frustratingly looking for a bottle of mineral water. That's not an accident.

It's not an accident that for any healthy food and essentials you have to walk past rows and rows of junk food. It's not a coincidence that milk and butter is always at the back. That unhealthy food like chocolate and chips are always opposite essentials such as tea or toilet paper. It's an effort to tempt to buy what you shouldn't.

Supermarkets will have special displays for products that the specific company has paid to be made prominent. Supermarket giants will even decide which shelf the product goes on - eye level or higher - depending on their relationship with the producer. Recently, maybe a few years ago, supermarkets decided to really push their home brand and make it much more prominent, which is why you see the home brand tins and such at eye level now and in a much more obvious place.

So it's not totally out of the question that supermarkets are at the level of profiling groups of shoppers, banking on them behaving a certain way, going to a particular section and therefore maximising profit.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. It could be that it makes sense to put the yeast-free stock cubes with all the gluten-free stuff. That's where people who want specialist products will go, right? And maybe Soy milk is now next to cows milk because it's become so mainstream that it's worth putting the two together? Perhaps Indian food at better prices is separated because the providers of the more expensive products have asked them to be or paid more in order to give themselves a better chance?

Maybe, but I thought it was all about being price competitive? There are simply some elements of products and their placement that just don't add up.

My conclusion, after researching certain products at Tesco, was that there is a very deliberate profiling based on stereotypes of people, why they might go to certain sections and what they might perceive to be a fair price. Whether it is or is not.

Is gluten free really more expensive to buy off the provider who makes it? Or is Tesco charging extra because people who are intolerant of certain foods will pay a premium just to stay healthy. Oh, and put it in the section separate to everything else so you can't notice how much more expensive it is. (Wheat/Gluten/Milk free pasta penne1.50/500g, Mainstream white pasta penne Tesco brand 95p/500g).

Don't get me wrong, I don't want Wallmart style prices  - I want to pay what it's worth and make sure the manufacturer hasn't been ripped off and staff are paid properly. But after seeing products arranged the way they are, I can't be sure that's what's happening.

I do know that I will no longer shop in supermarkets the way I used to. I won't make a bee-line for where I know the product I want is, dutifully comparing the prices of surrounding products, not realising that the same product is often replicated throughout the store at varying prices. I'll look further a field and visit my smaller food providers in the neighbourhood to see what they've got going.

I'll be looking in the health food section and what I've sometimes seen offensively titled as the 'ethnic foods' section (thanks Sainsburys) to make sure there isn't a better deal there, or to make sure that I shouldn't take my business to my local wholefoods store.