It’s never too early for…Tesco Christmas range preview
Retail Insider this week attended the Tesco Christmas range preview event in East London which, given that the mince pies and chocolate Santas are already in the supermarkets, did not actually feel far too early.
As with last year the great thing about this event is that alongside the displays of food and the executive chef team under Jamie Robinson that you would expect to see, Tesco also makes available the other teams who research and develop specific areas of the range – people with whom journalists would not normally speak.
Key design trends for Christmas 2024 (although various people assured us that they were already scoping for Christmas 2025) were around luxurious indulgence with purple and burgundy accompanied by gold being a key feature of cushions, rugs, and homewares. However cosy continues to also feature with whites, creams and browns across the range.
One new cross-range feature is the Abominable Snowman motif, which has accompanying cupcakes, plushies, music box, chocolate figures and other sweet treats.
Across food and drink the foraged forest was the underlying theme with many products featuring dark fruits such as black cherry, blackberries or damsons (well done to Tesco for championing these fantastic small English wild plums). Tesco is at pains to make its range as inclusive as possible with free-from, veggie and vegan option variations on many of the festive sandwiches with the new curry wurst wrap catching Retail Insider’s eye particularly linking into the ever-popular Germanic Christmas Markets.
Finally, almost every stand contained products that require some work or varying degrees of finishing by the end consumer. This trend which began, of course, during lockdown, continues apace and includes a whole Christmas fruit cake kit for the nervous or those hosting for the first time during Christmas.
The Tesco cheese and charcuterie expert told us that people were now much more adventurous with their Christmas cheeses and entertaining ideas. And they also like to customise sharing platters for their guests. To that end the retailer has launched a pack of eight grazing boats with accompanying fillings while a fairy light wreath uses brightly coloured chilli peppers for the lights.
Within the main Christmas Day feasting items customers increasingly serve a starter of some sort before the roast dinner so the emphasis here was on fun, light and simple to serve options so think salmon mousse in the shape of a Christmas tree. But most noticeable were the pigs in blankets, which were enormous and will be soon available all year round according to the pork specialist on hand. She said Tesco sought to elevate and premiumise where it could and the pigs in blankets certainly look to have moved up a notch or two in quality. Retail Insider has firmly placed this product on the shopping list.
Also noteworthy is an easy-to-carve turkey, which has been deboned but left with the drumsticks on – the retailer seems to be seeking out a newer generation of cooks and hosts with less experience in the traditional Christmas preparation or who would like the complicated process simplified. In that vein, for 2024 there is a Christmas dinner box to feed four with meat and all the trimmings for £60 (£50 with Clubcard), which looks as though it will be very popular.
Within canapes the team has tried to present new tastes in familiar formats or vice-versa, for example katsu empanadas and nduja wellingtons, which they hope will make intergenerational festivities more interesting. And for inclusive reasons, for the non-drinkers a set of three classic cocktails but in mocktail form.
In desserts, the team recently went on fact-and-food-finding trips to New York and Paris to help them develop the cheesecake and dessert ranges which now includes a Black Forest Christmas pudding.
The Tesco gifting section contains for the first time a collection of Finest product-based hampers which puts it firmly in M&S territory as the company seeks to grow revenues from this particular range. The Italian-focused hamper retails at £45 and a classic Christmas wicker box also features.
Finally, the executive chef team’s range of specially selected items has expanded this year from four products in 2023 to 10 in 2024 highlighting how well it sold previously. The highlight was a savoury cheesecake (slightly reminiscent of an indulgent retro school dinner cheese flan although the chef was far too young to remember any such thing!), which will retail for £8 – all the items in this range come with personally recorded information accessed via QR codes on why and how the chef developed the dish in line with the current Tesco food love story advertising model. Retail Insider was especially partial to the pork Wellington.
Christina Davis, Christmas preview specialist, Retail Insider