For years, I’ve enjoyed a quick lunch composed of a tin of Heinz Scotch Broth (the most ‘homemade’ tasting of all their soup offerings) with a smoked pork sausage i.e. the brown shiny curled ones that come in a vacuum pack inside a foil outer package, cut up into chunks and added to the soup. These sausage delights used to be sold as Pork Boiling Rings, but this unappetising description was unsurprisingly quickly dropped by the marketing department. I remember when they first came out, my Mother used to cut them into thick slices and add them to Heinz Tomato Soup (the only soup my Father and Brother would touch). Pork Boiling Rings have shrunk significantly over the years and one sausage certainly couldn’t feed a family of four these days, nor would ‘elf & safety recommend serving in ways almost perfectly designed to block an airway. But the 60s and 70s were carefree days before the Heimlich Manoeuvre tripped off the tongue, and when chocking accidents were just that; unfortunate accidents, no GoFundMe for ‘a big send off’ or any compensation for being unwise in the kitchen.
Being thrifty I prefer to buy my soup from discount stores, but for the last eighteen months locally none have stocked Heinz Scotch Broth (the best thing arguably, whisky aside, ever to come out of Scotland apart from bagpipes, Nicola Sturgeon and TNC’s own Man Cave correspondent – n.b. two out of three of these statements are untrue). Finally I took the OCD route and emailed Heinz, asking if their Scotch Broth has been discontinued. Their prompt reply shows just how invaluable the interweb is, compared to ‘phoning or writing (and incidentally how those with no intelligence can still be employed); the Heinz email customer services correspondent couldn’t say if Scotch Broth was still manufactured as they were only involved with personal online orders, presumably not from Scotch Broth addicts, and didn’t deal with any high street Heinz retailers or it seems think it useful to answer a simple question. Not to be thwarted, I then ‘phoned the Heinz-Kraft helpline and spoke to a lovely lady who expressed surprise as Scotch Broth hasn’t in fact been discontinued. She knew, because she was based in the North West and this is where Kraft-Heinz now make their Scotch Broth – was it relocated just to spite the SNP I wonder? Apparently it is still available in East Yorkshire (but a note was made to see why it was not more widely stocked) from all of the larger supermarket chains that I normally try my best to avoid. Off I toddled to our Tesco Superstore, needs must when craving for a broth fix, and indeed there were tins of Heinz Scotch Broth lurking among the latest weird and wonderful Heinz soup varieties.
If you’ve read this far, and I don’t blame you if you haven’t, we now meet the unacceptable face of capitalism (as first noted by Ted Heath of Tiny Rowland). In the Hull Tesco superstore (or souperstore?) Heinz Scotch Broth is now on sale for an extortionate £1.70 a tin, BUT buy five tins for £5 or ten tins for £9, if you can even carry ten tins that is. Now, how can Heinz via Tesco or vice versa afford to vary the price of a tin of soup from an extortionate £1.70 to just 90p and still make a profit? Is it just me, or is something not right here? Can single OAPs perhaps sue Tesco for discrimination for being hoodwinked into paying 80p more for a tin of soup than a huge family? I assume OAPs are the most likely demographic to buy tinned soup, and that Generation Alpha would be repulsed by something that needs to be heated up and also has bits floating in it that possibly include real (hopefully non-halal or non-kosher butchered) lamb.
This Labour Government (but equally the last Conservative one and unfortunately no doubt the Reform one in waiting) seem to emulate the soup pricing economic model of generous discounts for some, but not for others. Imagine you’re an OAP on the old State Pension maximum of £176.45 per week, for which largesse you possibly contributed National Insurance for forty years or more. Wouldn’t you prefer instead to live in a three star hotel in a nicely heated room, with all your meals provided and your laundry and cleaning done for you? I bet many would, but unfortunately £176.45 won’t pay for more than a couple of days ‘holiday living’. Just as many OAPs, and indeed others, are unable to benefit from 90p tins of soup, these very same people (most of us) are also insulted by the presence in our communities of young illegal ‘immigrants’ who pay for nothing, contribute nothing and yet holiday 24/7 at our expense.
Is there any wonder the ‘far-right’ is on the rise (allegedly). Will an on-line digital identity card be required to buy Scotch Broth so that Big Broth-er knows what you’re up to? I really think we should be told.
For those who missed Food for Thought part I, you can find it here.
Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.
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(Photograph: bnhsu, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
It gets worse, those sausages are now hard to come by as well and hotdogs are a poor substitute.
Martin Rispin is a scream – and a scream who lives in the same town (?city) as that other scream, Roger Watson, if my memory is correct. I can’t imagine the hilarity if the two of them get together for some socialising over a cup of tea (I’m teetotal and try to avoid encouraging others to drink alcohol but, if they must, then yes, a glass of beer/whisky), but a shock-horror has just entered my mind – they may be one and the same, Roger and Martin, who knows. They certainly share a great sense of humour.
My one beef with Tesco – and the reason I seldom shop there – is their two-tier system of cheaper prices for customers who sign up for the Tesco card. If someone organises a protest march, I’ll be there.
Enjoyed the piece. Must try the soup.
We aren’t the same person and do indeed meet up in ‘ull over a few pints. 100% agree about the immorality of dual pricing and increasingly the expectation you’ll have a loyalty App to benefit.
Thanks for the clarification – had just wondered if Roger and you might be identifying as twins!
I honestly avoid Tesco, and have only shopped there very occasionally out of necessity, due to their dual pricing policy – and I’ve found that both customers and check-out staff, who hear me moaning about it in the queue – surprisingly agree.