Tesco’s Value range have been around since 1993 and have been easily identifiable by their bold red, white and blue striped and simple packaging. For a while it was kinda embarrassing to buy Value products then once the recession hit everyone it became cool to be frugal and Value products jumped in popularity again. Well, in my circles anyway. 

In 2008 Tesco launched ‘discount brands’ which were just Tesco own products with ‘brand’ like names. It was weird, I guess they were worried discount European supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi were becoming viable options for an increasingly less wealthy British population. I was confused by the positioning of the discount brands, they were cheaper than Tesco’s own, more expensive than Value but didn’t seem to offer anything different from either. They didn’t taste especially great, so why should I spend more? Why not buy Tesco’s own brand or value or splash out and go for Finest or an actual brand brand?

So I’m glad that Tesco is shifting the focus away from it’s confusing discount brand and doing what they should have done in the first place, reboot Value. Value has always meant no frills and hopefully they keep true to that, while at the same time delivering safe products. I remember reading the ingredient list for Tesco Value Vanilla Ice cream and finding no trace of Vanilla in the list. 

Though I wonder now that by making Value, I mean Everyday Value look so attractive they might have displaced their generic store brand. If Value gets better then how big will the gap be between Everyday Value, Tesco’s Own and Finest be? Won’t it make sense just to always buy Value?

As always the consumers will tell by their spending habits and honestly, I’m excited to see how this pans out.