Unpalatable truth about what’s in your weekly shopping basket
Consumer shows seem to have become the new property TV — they’re everywhere, with three new ones screened this week alone. Last night saw the return of Supershoppers (C4) presented by Anna richardson and sabrina Grant. While programmes such as Watchdog go for the serious approach, supershoppers adopts a more matey tone. This meant tiresome skits where the hosts dress up and pretend to be flatmates. But there was no need because the information they did present was all rather useful.
The first episode in the fifth series dealt with price match promises. John Lewis’s interpretation of their famous ‘ never knowingly undersold’ slogan turned out to be questionable. It wasn’t enough for a shopper to find the same item cheaper elsewhere — it also had to be the exact same colour.
We also learned that the Duracell bunny has been leading us up the garden path. Today’s batteries are nearly all alkaline with the leaky old zinc ones being all but extinct. However, the ‘lasts 15 hours longer claim’ is based on comparing alkaline batteries to zinc. When supershoppers conducted a test, Duracell lasted only one hour longer than sainsbury’s own brand — which were nearly half the price.
The most compelling part of the programme came with the revelation that Tesco had invented a string of companies in a bid to take on the threat of German discount supermarket rivals Lidl and Aldi.
There were ready meals from The Hearty Food Company, vegetables from redmere Farms and bread from H.W. nevills. The truth was that these companies were all re-branded versions of the Tesco everyday Value range.
The consumer is hard-wired to believe that better packaging means better-quality food — so the no- frills labels were out and replaced with homelier, artisanlooking ones instead.
supershoppers performs a valuable service, but a shorter show would pack more of a punch and save us from the terrible stunts.
A company that genuinely did start out as a cosy family brand is Cadbury. Secrets Of The Chocolate Factory: Inside Cadbury (C5) looked back at the beginnings of a firm that today turns over £12 billion and sells to 40 countries.
It was founded 140 years ago when John Cadbury, a Quaker, wanted to bring work to a deprived area of Birmingham, and also provide employees with housing and medical care. And so the village of Bournville was born.
John’s vision paid off. Children living at Bournville were on average 2in taller and 9lb heavier than their Victorian counterparts living in the slums.
roald Dahl was said to have been inspired to write Charlie And The Chocolate Factory as a schoolboy after being selected to be a chocolate taster. every few months he would be sent a package of 12 new bars and asked to rate each one.
In his diary, he wrote about the incredible inventing rooms he imagined existed at the factory. Cadbury’s real-life Willy Wonka is Dave shepherd, a chocolate scientist tasked with dreaming up new flavours and guarding the secret recipe of Dairy milk.
We also saw how Cadbury created some of the most iconic TV adverts. The overtly sexual ‘Flake girl’ would never make it past today’s PC censors while the milk Tray man, who broke into women’s homes to leave them chocolates, would be considered a creepy stalker in the age of #meToo.
And the documentary mostly glossed over the fact Cadbury is now part of a u.s. corporation. CHRISTOPHER STEVENS is away.