strawberries fruit veg

Tesco has risked the wrath of Scottish customers after ditching the country’s flag from its strawberries in response to complaints from the English.

Yesterday Tesco told customers on Twitter that it had decided to replace the Saltire with the Union Flag on fruit punnets to bring it in line with English produce, which is sold under the UK flag.

Tesco explained: “Over the past year we received several customer complaints regarding Scottish flags on strawberries in England. When the category went through corporate redesign it was decided to have British packaging only to avoid further criticism.”

However, Tesco has seemingly failed to avoid criticism, with social media going into meltdown and Tesco’s response being retweeted hundreds of times.

Many Scots posted angry references to the decision and some threatened to boycott the produce. “Everything is about flags to you nationalists, never mind how the strawberries taste,” posted one.

The supermarket appears to have taken a similar approach to its meat lines. One customer tweeted a sign at Scottish Tesco branch that read: “We are committed to sourcing Scottish pork however due to current circumstances, some of the pork products at our counters - whilst produced on Scottish farms - will be labelled as British.” The supermarket did not clarify what the “current circumstances” were.

Tesco clarified its position on Tuesday, by stating the tweet had been made in error. 

“To provide consistency for customers, we mark all of our homegrown fresh berries with a Union flag,” a spokesman said. ”The country of origin is also clearly displayed on pack.”

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