Jack’s – Brexit anxiety on a shelf but the promise of 39p broccoli? I’ll give it a go if you ditch the Union Flag

DEAR Jack’s. This is the right, Jack’s, isn’t it? The new, cheap supermarket Jack’s, launched by Tesco last week in its bid to find a space in the market hitherto occupied by Lidl and Aldi?

Anyway, Jack’s, I’m not sure if you’re thinking about bringing your cheery new stores to Scotland, but there are a few things perhaps you might like to consider before you do. The first is your name, which, it’s true, has got a nice ring to it – casual and friendly. It’s easy to imagine people talking about popping into Jack’s as if they were on their way to coffee at their friend’s – in the way they already do with Lidl.

But, the problem with calling yourself Jack’s is that here in Scotland, and probably in other parts of the UK too, when we see that name, we think of one thing, the Union Jack. Particularly when we see the flag plastered all over your shops. We think nationalism. We think identity politics. We think what does that 39p broccoli have to do with a “no deal” Brexit next year?

Then we think – what? Wait a second – 39p for a stem of broccoli? When are they bringing Jack’s to Scotland? And can I get away without shopping there without contemplating what, with those low prices, they must be paying the farmer and the staff ?

A lot of people are saying Jack’s is not about British identity or nationalism – your name, they say, is a tribute to Tesco’s founder, Jack Cohen. But it’s hard not to be suspicious when the first few stores you have launched are in Cambridgeshire, a strong Leavevoting county, and Lincolnshire, which recorded the highest

Brexit vote in the UK.

I don’t think this is oversensitivity. We live in an age when everything seems to be about national identity. I can also completely understand why you would lure people in by drawing on their feelings about where Britain is at right now – their anxieties and their hopes.

In insecure times like these, it’s easy to see why even food stores would try to tug on these emotions, as well as our desire just to feed ourselves and get a bargain.

I don’t blame you, Jack’s. The supermarket landscape isn’t what it used to be, and all the big chains are suffering. Where you shop is no longer about your class or mobility aspirations. Lidl and Aldi changed all that.

At some point in the last five years it became fine, however posh you were, to swoon over Lidl and its products. The store became part of who we were in a modern Europe and a globalised, disrupted world. Meanwhile, it’s these two German stores that are predicted to ride out the Brexit process best, and our traditional, British stores that look to be set for a beating.

And Jack’s, I do like some of your buy British ethos. Buying from your own country, whether Scotland or Britain, isn’t a bad thing. Ideally, it should be part of a “buy local” principle at the heart of a food culture. So I like the fact that eight out of 10 of the products you sell will be raised and produced in Britain. But, that doesn’t mean I like your flag-flying image.

It also doesn’t mean I don’t wonder if buying British, in a Scottish Jack’s might mean, as it sometimes does in Tesco, getting apples from hundreds of miles away in Kent or strawberries from Herefordshire.

Cheap food is great – it’s what we need – but only if the British farmers are paid a decent price, the environment is respected and the staff are paid well. And, I very much doubt that is what we’re looking at. Already news has emerged that you, Jack’s, are paying “more of a base rate of pay” to its staff than Tesco.

So, are you, Jack’s, an answer to grocery retail in Brexit Britain? Or food security in these islands? I doubt it – but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t pop in to just to pick up some of your 39p broccoli sometime.