Tesco take Scottish flag off of strawberries after ‘complaints’ from English customers
The supermarket giant has since backtracked from its initial comments, saying it had not received any criticism of the packaging and it was decision made to maintain consistency
TESCO has removed the Scottish flag from its punnets of berries after customers in England complained over the packaging design.
In a series of tweets to a confused customer, TESCO explained the flag had been replaced by the British flag during a corporate redesign.
The long explanation was kicked off when customer Eileen Brown tweeted to the supermarket giant, asking why the decision had been made to mark Scottish produce with the saltire flag.
In its replies, the social media team wrote: "Hi Eileen, over the past year, we received several customer complaints regarding Scottish flags on strawberries in England.
"English customers criticised us why do we not apply the English flag on English berries and why we do for Scottish berries.
"When the category went through corporate re-design, it was decided to have British packaging only to avoid further criticism.
"Product origin is printed on each punnet ie customers in Scotland will be allocated with Scottish fruit and this is visible.
"I really hope this helps Eileen? If you need any further help please get in touch."
The tweets were signed off by Leuan.
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Eileen, who opened up the line of questioning, said the reply had been "a bit of a surprise."
She wrote: ";What have Scottish fruit farmers done to make English hate them?"
She later wrote that the change was a sign of "weird times".
But Tesco has since backtracked from its comments on social media, saying they had not received any complaints from customers and the decision had been made simply to provide consistency across its stores.
But by then, even Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgen had weighed in, telling Buzzfeed News: "I am very proud of the saltire, and I tend not to make my purchasing decisions in Tesco on the basis of the flags on the packaging.
"Of course there's a serious point here in terms of origin of produce and the saltire on Scotland-produced goods is an imoortant marketing tool for us."
She said she hoped "common sense" would prevail.
She said: "Strawberries from Scotland are just the best strawberries, that's why we should eat them - not because of the flag that happens to be on their packaging."
A Tesco spokesperson said: ";To provide consistency for customers, we mark all of our homegrown fresh berries with a Union flag. The country of origin is also clearly displayed on pack."
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