Tesco – Coke Zero – It’s back?

So a friend reports Coke Zero in bottles is back in Tesco in Ipswich, and my wife told me it’s back in one Tesco in Nottingham as well.

Will we ever know what really happened?

Does anyone really care?

Anyway, good news for those of us who like the drink!

Tesco / Coke Zero

So it seems to be true.  Tesco (in the UK) has decided to stop stocking Coke Zero.  We noticed they didn’t have any and asked customer service, and they couldn’t find a re-order entry.  A few days later a friend said their Tesco (completely different part of the country didn’t have any either).  I checked their online grocery website (tesco.com) and true enough, no Coke Zero available there.

I e-mailed and phoned, and eventually got a reply from a guy saying he’d spoken to their buying department, and they had decided to stop carrying Coke Zero.  He couldn’t explain why, and didn’t understand why, but there you have it.

So now we’re buying our Coke Zero from Asda, and we may end up shopping there more often as a result rather than going to do supermarkets.  Tesco fail?

Edit: Let me know (in the comments) if your local Tesco is / isn’t stocking Coke Zero and if you’ve been able to find out why.

Pain killers @ Tesco

So yesterday I tried to buy 2 packets of Nurofen (Ibuprofen) and 1 packet of Paracetamol at Tesco.  Nurofen is the quickest thing I can take to combat the migraine-like headaches I get.  I wanted the paracetamol because I’d had a slight temperature on Friday night, and the only other paracetamol we have in the house is part of Grete’s prescribed stuff, not really that useful.  The cashier told me I could only buy two packets of pain killers.  Let’s not worry about the fact that it’s perfectly possible to take Nurofen and paracetamol at the same time.  Let’s just count the actual packets that might even possibly be a pain killer and limit them to 2.  I could have bought 1 x ibuprofen, 1 x codeine and 1 x paracetamol and been perfectly safe taking them at the same time ((this is not medical advice, I do not give medical advice, you should seek medical advice before taking any tablets)).  But ooohh nooo, the nanny state or nanny Tesco says I’m only allowed to buy 2 packets of pain killers at once.

Because I’m clearly too stupid to walk outside and go to Boots or Superdrug or Asda and buy more.

It really annoys me.  I tried once to buy 3 packets of Nurofen, and they stopped me and only allowed me 2, but I assumed that since I was trying this time to buy tablets that don’t conflict, it would be okay.  The time I tried to buy the three Nurofen I was so pissed off by their actions that I bought 2 packets, and then walked back in and bought another from the same store.  I wondered if their POS system would somehow do a check, but of course it doesn’t.

Yes, I know there’s research which suggests if you reduce the number of tablets in home medicine cabinets it reduces the suicide rate based on overdoses.  Yes, I know that if I took two boxes of Ibuprofen and one box of Paracetamol it would do me some harm.  But please,  I just wanted to buy some pain killers.

Stress free shopping

Just got back from what has to be our most stress free ‘last shop before Christmas’ in the history of Christmases.  Granted we’d got loads of stuff already buying it in little bits over the last 3 weeks, but there’s always fresh stuff you need, bread, milk, veg, etc. and Tesco was totally empty at 8:30am this morning!  We grabbed some breakfast, and then sorted the last of the food.

No need to go shopping again now until next Saturday.

We’re not penny pinching this Christmas but we’re certainly budgeting, and so far we’re within budget, although I have to pretend I’m not paying for more tooth work in February and I don’t need a new wing mirror.