To Marks and Spencers in Ipswich today, to purchase my customary granny smith apples. But zounds! What is this?
M&S apples come packed in fours in a foam base, thereby reducing bruising. Except that this week M&S has removed the base. There's now just four apples in a shrink-wrap bit of clear plastic. Funnily enough, most of the apples are damaged, and I have some difficulty getting what I want. I notice that less popular apples are still available in the proper packaging.
I'm sure some fool will whimper that damaged apples saves the planet. But this is about cost cutting, surely? The price is the same; but the goods are inferior.
But onwards. On my way to the checkout I saw a box of sweeties in bags of string. Well, I'm quite partial to their chocolate money, so I pick up one of the little yellow bags full of "coins". But egad!?! The bag is about a third empty! Instead of the usual stack of thick coins, there's a miserable three big ones and a few small ones.
I look at the price; it's £2. It's the same as a big bar of Cadburys milk chocolate, and contains about a third of the amount. It's a rip-off, frankly.
Clearly Mr. Marks (or Mr. Spencer) has been at the accounts again. Instead of raising the already absurd price, he's decided to give short weight. At least, what else can I think that this is? So I throw the bag back. I can get a good big bar of chocolate at Tesco for 27p, after all.
I am depressed. I don't go to M&S to get cheap. I go there to get quality.
Years ago, people used to buy M&S clothes. An M&S suit was the standard interview suit. You paid a bit more, but you got rather better quality. Then the market started to be flooded with cheap chinese imports - rubbish quality, but bottom-dollar price. And M&S gradually reduced... their quality. The prices did come down a little, but suddenly you were getting much poorer quality clothes.
I still buy M&S shirts; just try buying a Tesco shirt and you can feel the difference! But I don't buy M&S as I did, and neither does anyone else, as their sales figures show. And it seems that the food department is now treading the same disastrous route.
