I was appalled this morning. All of my fruit and veg products in my monthly Tesco shop, whether plastic or shrink-wrapped or not, arrived in brown paper carrier bags. As usual, far too few items in each bag. I looked at them in horror and wondered about tree-felling v. plastic bags. The paper ones come from 'a responsibly managed source' (ie not made from recycled paper) and the plastic ones are at least degradable after a few months, and surely far cheaper and actually, in this case, probably preferable.
I asked the delivery man what on earth had happened. he said that after a large survey in which customers didn't think that their veg were fresh enough (despite being no worse than Sainsbury in any way), it was decided to put it all in brown paper carriers, whether already in plastic or not. I said I certainly hadn't been consulted, who on earth had they picked to do this survey? He said, probably the thickest-looking people in the least-well educated area of the UK!
Apparently after having trialled the bags somewhere, the overwhelming feedback was that the veg were now fresher.... I despair, I really do.
