Tesco Christmas review – nostalgia and innovation
As you would expect the mighty Tesco’s Christmas preview is a multi-floor affair encompassing everything from food and drink to the kind of festive fare which will be on offer in its cafes to home decoration and gifting.
It is always welcome at the Tesco event to be speaking directly to the people involved in range development who can always give extra insight. We learned this year, for example, that the party food developer was determined to ‘break the beige’ of the festive buffet which surely could be turned into some kind of corporate catchphrase. But break it, he certainly had. Spring rolls had therefore undergone a ‘makeover’ and are now extremely colourful with a Sri Lankan and Japanese version among others, and the prawn lollipops were a traffic light combination of red, amber (maybe beige-ish) and green.
There’s also been Michelin-chef influence on some items such as the arancini and a new invention – the ‘bao-nut’ – which is a lightly-spiced veggie treat. Even the traditional fish finger now has a masala crumb as the developer maintains that the majority of customers would like a bit more spice and global elevation to the party food range. But please don’t worry there is also, oh yes, a pigs in blankets pastry cracker.
Tesco is often on a mission to introduce customers to flavours that they might not have been aware of and to that end, the stilton comes with a layer of fig preserve in the middle of it – neatly encouraging people who might not think of buying the fig condiment separately to see how well it pairs.
Across the range the trend is towards the small wins on taste which can be added to a dish for finishing at home, although Retail Insider learnt that it can be a challenge to develop packaging that allows consumers to fully appreciate all the little extra finishers they are getting for their money. So a pork joint comes with black truffle butter and the confit potatoes have a roasted garlic to squeeze on top, while the King Arthur’s joint has a sachet of red wine jus and chutney as part of the offer.
Two trends of note in meat for Tesco are firstly that turkey is less popular and chicken more so. And secondly, the introduction of their own range of Roe and Red venison for the first time. With the number of wild deer at epidemic proportions and knock-on effects on other wild flora and fauna, Tesco will be a major route to market for suppliers of this lean, organic meat. Buy more venison we suggest.
Within the gifting category, Tesco hopes to win big with a new Japanese distribution deal with Mofusand (think cute cat in different costumes) which we are assured will soon be all over the UK and has also been busy doing deals with Wagamama and Guinness. There is 85% newness across this range – testament to the importance of novelty and customers’ expectations of finding gifts at the supermarket. And the Christmas Eve box is apparently here to stay although some customers present it along with the advent calendar at the beginning of December.
Foodie presents have focused on some beautiful biscuit packaging which can be reused and a hefty time investment in hot chocolate with Black Forest and Tiramisu versions and a huge new Chocolate Bombe. As customers look for more shared-experience gifts there is now a whole gingerbread village to create and for the first time Tesco has decided that the Narnia Christmas moment of eating Turkish delight merits an own label product so rose and lemon varieties are launched this season.
Pudding is one category where people knowingly overbuy not only because Christmas pudding grows less popular among the younger consumer – and therefore multiple desserts are needed for Christmas Day – but also because whereas turkey can be offered day after day, hosts want to offer fresh desserts with every meal. For those who are nostalgic but actually not that nostalgic, for traditional pud there is a chocolate cake which mimics the usual cannonball! Luckily mince pies are infinitely variable, there will be no less than 13 different versions on sale this Christmas at Tesco including a brown butter pastry one with orange liqueur mincemeat.
When it comes to food-to-go, the crisps have it…new takeaway inspired flavours include pastrami & pickles and salt & pepper chicken while the Tesco famous Christmas Triple sandwich is back but with the addition of a pork pie and piccalilli sandwich. Overnight oats continue to be very popular and a cinnamon bun variety will be hitting the shelves.
Finally, when visiting a Tesco in-store café this year, Retail Insider recommends the Viennese whirl mince pie and the reindeer biscuit – both of which we ate far too many of during the preview.
Glynn Davis, editor, Retail Insider