Tesco
“Shop with us once, you’ll be hooked. Shop with us twice, you’ll be ours.”
– Tesco Chief Executive on his dastardly plans
“We will crush your puny caring businesses and tiny moral values and traditions with our massive bank balance and cold ruthless efficiency.”
– Tesco Chief executive reading an excerpt from his bestseller, The Handy Guide to Decluttering (pg. 395)
“The meal deals are nice.”
– Oswald Mosley on Tesco
Tesco, officially the Federal Union of Autonomous Shopping Republics, is a large country that has grown in size since its origin in 1917. It is the largest thing in the world by some considerable distance. It was founded largely on Marxist
shopping principles, somewhat of a contradiction you might say, but they sure as hell have found a way!
While inside, please refrain from buying Nando’s new Mouth-Roasting-Japan-Hiroshima-Bomb-Devil’s-Blood-Extra-Spicy sauce.
Tesco recruits its staff by loitering outside school gates, waiting for school dropouts. It has a strict policy of not employing anybody with 5 GCSEs or more. If you send them 10 or more CVs they send you a polite letter to tell you to stop sending fucking CVs.
So if you're looking for an exciting, well paid and mentally stimulating career that allows you to express your creativity, get lots of fresh air, make lifelong mates and meet lots of interesting people, then working for Tesco is not for you.
Tesco prides itself in destroying small businesses. Whether it be the local newsagent run by that Indian guy who is always happy to sell a porno to a 4-year-old, or the crack dealer that hangs round the corner (Tesco has branched into the drug manufacturing sector), competition is non-existent. If you’re a drug addict, go to Tesco. If you are a person who assaulted a 61-year old man because he called your generation a bunch of useless snowflakes, endorsed infanticide and called for a ban on iPhones, Head to ASDA. It's to your right.
Supporting the local community[edit | edit source]
Tesco is the number one source of junkies nicking food and drink to then sell on the street for heroin money. This is just one way that Tesco gives back, a magnanimous part of the social fabric of the UK and beyond.
Pointless Repetitive Tasks[edit | edit source]
The Tesco job application leaflet states that slaves will perform "many pointless repetitive tasks" such as bathroom breaks. Tesco's Polish branch have violated many union rules in this regard, with employees told that they must wear nappies at all times to keep them working without having to leave the shop floor.
Shitting in a nappy rather than not stocking tin beans on a shelf is far more efficient. Every little helps!
Entertainment[edit | edit source]
In order to fund operations, Tesco provides entertainment services to the public, attracting large amounts of social clients and lower people with nothing else to spend their days on. Tesco provides a playground of goods and merchandises, occasionally including food, where contestants stroll around with provided trolleys. Some locations even have an on-site private whorehouse.
Contestants are tasked with gathering goods at the lowest price possible, trying to maximize the ratio of goods over total price. For instance, tins of beans are a good item for collecting in the first rounds of the game, as they provide lots of food, basically a full dinner, for just a few pennies. However, more experienced players will know that there are subtle differences between tins, for instance one tin of beans might be 41p, while another is 35p, but the 41p version might come with sausages, providing more food for almost the same amount of money. However, these sausages may not actually be pork meat so may therefore hinder that product in some way. Whilst both cans are devoid of nutrition, they are full of all the wrong kinds of fats and carbs, and one of the tins is far more heart attack inducing than the other. That is the mystery of the game.
The intriguing part of the game of Tesco is that it is so complex. Some goods might come with "Buy 2 for the price of 3" tags, while others may offer "40% more for half the price", and comparing all these products takes careful planning and analysis. It is important to recognize offers that will be popular, because the game also involves strategic measures. For instance, if one kind of sliced bread is provided at 11p, but all the others are 50p and above, some players will be running to the cashier with trolleys full of sliced bread. Clearly the strategy is to empty the shelves of the cheap bread so that other players will spend several hours having to choose between the remaining, more expensive bread products. Luckily, there are plenty of helpful staff on hand to assist customers with their endless queries about bread. The staff are leprechauns and are constantly rummaging through customers' wallets/purses in search of alcohol and gold.
Another fun element of the game is trying to find examples of shrinkflation which tescos makes really difficult by subtly reducing the number of grams in the package whilst not changing the packaging at all. Winning the game requires brining a magnifying glass, a complex excel spreadsheet and doing quick maths, all whilst running around with a shopping cart, a bit like the whacky races only doing figures in your head.
One round of Tesco is estimated to last about 5 hours, but breaks are allowed using the pit stop Tesco café. However, while on a break, players might miss out offers of great importance to the overall game results, such as a pile of 20" TVs being placed into the game field, which will be swiftly conquered by the active players. A larger, more complex version of the game exists in some locations. Those game maps tend to be much larger, and many more products and services can be conquered by players. These include pharmacies, gold exchange locations, and opticians.
There are no written rules about the player uniforms, but it is generally regarded that players should wear loose sweatpants or tight leggings, depending on body shape and age. It is not allowed to wear normal shoes - special slippers or sandals must be worn at all times. Old sneakers are allowed, but only combined with proper worn out sweatpants.
This game is quite complex, and so are the awards. It is therefore difficult to announce the winner. Prizes might involve vouchers for different activities the players will never attend, such as 1 free year at a random fitness centre, but they could also be discount vouchers for the next game of Tesco. Thus players will usually return the next day to continue their quest, addicted to the game. Addiction has proved extremely serious in some areas, such as in Ilkeston, where a 22 year old man was carried out of Tesco exhausted after reportedly playing non-stop for 67 days. It is common for those who play the Tesco game for longer than 30 days to enter reality TV competitions on British television channel ITV. However, playing beyond this period of time may result in players having to participate in more inferior programming on Channel 4 or Five. Winning such programmes will mean you have successfully won the Tesco Game.
Extra Game[edit | edit source]
An even harder game to play in Tesco is to try doing your weekly shopping without being sucked into getting a Clubcard (or Tesco Loan, Tesco Car Insurance, Tesco Credit Card or any other of the many Tesco services "available"). This game is often played at Tesco Roselawn, Dublin, Ireland. To this date there are no known players who have succeeded in this game at all. I mean, you could choose not to get a Clubcard and miss out on the savings, but at least you wouldn’t have to hand over your personal data. Then again, every little helps, right? Every little helps. Repeat after me, every little helps. Get it through that soft brain of yours. EVERY LITTLE HELPS!!!
Ethnic tensions within Tesco[edit | edit source]
An investigation into ethnic tensions at Tesco, commissioned in early 2007, noted that Tesco has now got so large that various sub-dialects have formed within the employee base of each store. Dialects form when a language area is so large that prolonged period of time with little contact between speakers occur, which can happen in a giant super Tesco. These dialects have become so diverse that an employee from Fresh Foods can no longer communicate with someone from Wine and Spirits without an intermediary. The shift in dialects has caused major difficulties within each store. In early 2008, members of the Dairy and Bread Department successfully gained control of the Vegetables aisle of Tesco and declared unilateral independence. So far the Customer Service desk has not recognized the move and is threatening to dispatch a small battalion of trolley boys to retake the aisle by force. Initial talks between the two sides have failed, at the infamous Morrisons car park summit held last month. The Dairy department, now under the jurisdiction of the PRD (The People's Republic of Dairy and Milk) have called for a independent UN investigation into the treatment of Dairy employees during the work year. The situation was further complicated by the breakaway province FRZNJDS (fomerly the Autonomous republic of Frozen Foods) who closed off aisles with other sections and are not letting any customers in until their secession has been recognized.
As of March 2008 customers do not require a Visa to shop in the Hygiene, Canned Goods or Cereal aisles of Tesco. However, a special mandatory permit is required to buy Frozen or Dairy produce.
Products[edit | edit source]
The products that players try to acquire include food, poison, lint, and just about everything else. Many of these products are known as 'Tesco Everyday Value' which are a mix of gruel, mushy peas, E numbers, or shoe dirt that has been crudely molded into the shape of the food it’s supposed to resemble. Examples of Tesco Everyday Value products include carrots, peas, baked beans, eggs, bread and Brazilian frog vomit. Also available are tins of strange substances that scientists have yet to identify. There is plenty of strategy in buying the right Tesco Everyday Value products, as some of them may have hidden advantages (Tesco Everyday Value peas, for example, can just be rinsed off and put back into circulation). The rest of the products are branded as 'Tesco Finest', and are basically the same thing, except the price tag is two or three times as much as the regular price. They are essentially put in to fool players and make the game harder to play.
New Marketing Strategy[edit | edit source]
"SUPERMARKET giant Tesco is to invest £300 billion in a major expansion plan which will see it build a mini-store attached to every home in Britain within the next five years.[edit | edit source]
The retailing superstar said it would add on one of its new Tesco Extension branded outlets to the rear of every house in the country, even those which contained poor people.
Each unit, which will be the size of a large conservatory, will be erected overnight with the minimum of disruption to people's lives, and will be accessible from the family kitchen through the rear of the existing fridge. Customers will pass through the fridge into their own private Tesco wonderland, stocked with a full range of essential grocery products including hot dog sausages, pork and leek sausages, and cumberland sausages.
Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco chief executive, said: "We wanted to bring back some of the magic and wonder of shopping for mums and their children. The new Tesco Extension stores will be the Narnia of the supermarket world."
However, it does not look as if Tesco is going to have it all its own way. Rival Sainsbury is already planning a fightback with its own Dr Who themed brand of individual home-based stores. It is planning to attach a small police phone box to the rear of every British home, even those that already have a Tesco Extension.
Even though the Sainsbury store will be smaller on the outside than the rival Tesco outlet it will be bigger on the inside, the supermarket claimed, allowing it to stock an even greater variety of sausages. In addition, Sainsbury said its stores will be able to travel through time thus ending forever the need to throw away food which has gone past its use-by date.
In Scotland, new houses will be built with integrated mini Tesco, Sainsbury's and at least one Co-op. This will provide a fabulous market force where they all compete to have the lowest price for Irn-Bru and Buckfast. This assumes they don't all collude on the price, which they will, but provides a semblance of a competitive market - which is the beauty of post-Thatcherite economics.
Sainsbury are even circumventing the "Recruiting at the school gates" laws by allowing their head of marketing (Celebrity chef and pukking idiot) Jamie Oliver to go into schools and cook School dinners while pushing the Sainsbury ethos that you have to visit Sainsbury's if you want good wholesome, not-for-chav, expensive, flavour-packed food instead of the reformed turkey products available at Tesco.
However Autumn 2007 saw the rivalry intensified when Tesco signed up the Spice Girls to head their new marketing strategy, pushing to the forefront of the British publics mind the ethos that if they can recycle five old bags so can you and reconstituted, reformed old turkey is cheap you know."
The Tesco Slogan[edit | edit source]
Tesco's most famous advertising slogan is "Every Little Helps". It has been pointed out that Sid Little, one half of the British comedy duo Little & Large has in fact never been seen helping at Tesco. Therefore we at Uncyclopedia would like you, the readers, to help settle this misleading rhetoric by voting in this official unofficial poll.
It has since been rumoured that Tesco will shortly be changing their slogan to:
"One World, One Checkout."
Tesco’s newest adverts are set to cause controversy by declaring, unilaterally, that all customer wallets are now considered 'loaned property of Tesco plc,' a claim the ASA has already ruled misleading, unsupported, and likely to cause unnecessary consumer concern.
Origin of the name[edit | edit source]
Tesco was originally established as the Office of Fair Trading, operating for decades as a British government department before its gradual transition into the grocery sector. However, following its decision to embark on a comprehensive bid for global authority, the department rebranded itself as the Totalitarian Economy for Social and Communist Organisations (TESCO), a title chosen to more transparently communicate the scope and nature of its activities, while simultaneously hiding them, in a brilliant feat of linguistic engineering.
See also[edit | edit source]
 | This article may be Overly British |