READERS' FORUM:HAVE YOUR SAY

There was a big response to our item on certain brands disappearing from Tesco’s shelves. Paschal Doherty asked if it had occurred to us that we “might be in some way responsible for this situation?” He said that “the race to the bottom, caused by people focusing on price alone, is playing into the hands of Tesco et al. Is it really necessary to say that Tesco are not about giving us better value? They are about getting us to spend more with them on the products that suit them.” He says the average shopper hoping to save some cash has little chance against the “heavy in-store manipulation psychology” and points out that “smaller shops, even though they appear to cost more, often cost their customers less. And even if they do cost more they more than compensate by giving a better ratio of employment per euro spent and a fairer deal for their struggling suppliers. Glad I got that off my chest!”.

Mark Cooney also had something to get off his chest. He expressed the belief that Tesco had “simply done a better job than everyone else” and said they were not the problem. “They have developed a business model and modus operandi which delivers what consumers want. If the rest want to compete, they need to up their game. This clearly is not trivial and cannot be accomplished without a long-term vision and strategy, and the cohones to carry it through.” He says that Irish retailers and suppliers “have grown fat, dumb and happy over the years of plenty, and now they find themselves unable to compete. They lacked the foresight, the vision and the capability to understand and anticipate the economic implosion of the country, they failed to do a good enough job managing the cost spiral, they failed to influence the government in restraining the crazy explosion in business costs, and they failed to develop their own in-house measures, ergo, they find themselves being squeezed out. Yadda yadda yadda – this is the way of the world.”

Michael Smyth from Windsor contacted us to say that Tesco had de-listed the pastas we mentioned – Barilla and De Cecco – in the UK. “I worked in the grocery business in Ireland for a few years and this practice was not uncommon. It wasn’t always comfortable, but at the end of the day, sales and margins are what are important and grocery was cut-throat.”

He says that when he was in the business it was Dunnes Stores which had the reputation for “being the most ruthless negotiators. Interesting that they don’t seem to get the same bad press that Tesco does. Maybe they’ve changed their strategy.”

Winning Spanish pharmacy prices

“Spain not only win the World Cup they also win on pharmacy prices,” writes a reader from Blackrock in Dublin. He has been taking Losec, a drug to combat a reflux problem, for many years. “Thanks to your column I was made aware of the price discrepancies for medicines here and in Spain. On a visit to Spain in June I was able to buy a year’s supply of Losec under the generic label omeprazol cinfa, 20mg for €34.80 or €2.90 per pack. This was over the counter and without a prescription. I have checked this out with my GP and it’s okay.” Losec costs about €45 for a month’s supply in Ireland so a patient taking the drug will spend €540 annually. Add two GP visits and the price of this fairly basic treatment rises to €660.

Festival booking charge

A Kilkenny reader contacted us about his pensioner mother who went to the Kilkenny Arts Festival box office last week to book tickets for some festival events.

“She was told that there was a mandatory surcharge of €2 per ticket due to the fact that the festival had some of its funding cut this year. Nowhere in their brochure is there any mention of such a charge,” he writes. “I think this practice is outrageous and attention should be drawn to this tactic.” We contacted the festival and were told that a charge of €1.50 for box office bookings and €1 for online bookings had indeed been introduced this year.

A spokeswoman said information about the charges had been published in the festival brochure and in the booking section of the website. Brendan Rice, marketing director of the festival said he would like if our reader’s mother could contact him at the festival office if she needed any further explanation. “The festival is keen to provide all of our audiences and potential audiences with a positive experience, and perhaps a personal explanation would be of some benefit,” he said.