Dear Erik
Thank you for your email.
We adjust the specification of our bags from time to time, to strike that difficult balance between their environmental impact and ensuring the bags are strong enough for customers to use with confidence.
We started to issue new carrier bags to our stores in February 2011.Our old bags were too thin, which meant that customers were using more of them, for example by not filling bags fully or by double bagging. Customers also told us they couldn’t reuse the weaker bags at home, and there were a small number of occasions when bags split when they were full of shopping.
Our new bags no longer have the biodegradable additive in them, which made them weaker. Removing this additive will help make our bags stronger addressing recent customer concerns and helping re-use and recycling.
We have taken the step to remove the biodegradable additive because – having reviewed the science – we believe that we can help to reduce single-use carrier bags more effectively through encouraging re-use and recycling. We offer a range of affordable reusable bags in all our stores, and instead of displaying carrier bags at checkouts, our staff ask customers if they will be reusing bags and offer them single-use bags if not.
We also offer green Clubcard points to customers who re-use bags in store. A Tesco customer now uses more than 50% fewer carrier bags than in August 2006, when we first introduced green Clubcard points. In terms of recycling, at the end of their life Tesco carrier bags can be recycled at most Tesco stores and through Tesco.com delivery drivers.
If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me at customer.service@tesco.co.uk quoting TES9353027X.
Kind Regards
Matthew Maycock
Customer Service Manager
Tesco Customer Service
—– Original Message —–
From: "Erik Ribsskog" <eribsskog@gmail.com>
Date: 12 March 2011
Subject: Complaint about 'shortage' on carriers/Fwd: TES7757419X Re: Re: Complaint about you Tesco-shops at Clayton Sq. and Liverpool One, in Liverpool
Hi,
I shop in the Tesco-shop in Liverpool One, (the Super shop), since it's the
shop with most 'order-lines', in Liverpool City Centre, and you have low
prices, on your 'value'-line.
(I'm unemployed you see).
There is a problem, with that almost every time I go to that shop, (this was
also a problem on Thursday, and also in 2010, like one can see in my
forwarded e-mail).
Why are you also out of carrier-bags?
I also shop at Aldi, Lidl and Home Bargains, and they are never out of
carrier-bags.
I've also been a shop-manager in the Rimi-chain, in Norway, from 1998 to
2002, and if we had forgotten to order carriers, then we drove and collected
them at another Rimi-shop.
This is a re-occouring problem at this Tesco-shop.
How can there be a shortage in carrier-bags?
I've also worked in packaging, on behalf of Packaging Europe, in Norwich,
and I know that there are thousands of suppliers of carrier-bags, in Europe.
This must be a manager-problem at Tesco Hanover St., (the Super shop), I
think.
There's nothing super about a shop which haven't got carriers.
So you should maybe call it 'almost Super Shop'.
Something like that.
And please don't ask me to call you again about this.
If you can't write it in an e-mail, it's because you have something to hide,
it seems to me.
This is very poor customer-service by Tesco!
Regards,
Erik Ribsskog
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Tesco Customer Service <customer.service@tesco.co.uk>
Date: Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 3:55 PM
Subject: TES7757419X Re: Re: Complaint about you Tesco-shops at Clayton Sq.
and Liverpool One, in Liverpool
To: eribsskog@gmail.com
Hi Erik
Firstly, I'd like to apologise for the delay in getting back to you. Please
let me assure you that we always try to respond to our customers' queries in
a timely manner and I'm sorry that due to high volumes of contact, this has
not happened on this occasion.
Having read your email thoroughly I think this would be best resolved if we
could talk this through. So, if you can email me back your telephone number
with a convenient time to call then I will contact you. If you would
prefer, I can be contacted on 01382 822528.
If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us at
customer.service@tesco.co.uk quoting TES7757419X.
Kind Regards
Keir Duncan
Team Leader
Tesco Customer Service
—– Original Message —–
From: "Erik Ribsskog" <eribsskog@gmail.com>
Date: 24 June 2010
Subject: Re: Complaint about you Tesco-shops at Clayton Sq. and Liverpool
One, in Liverpool
Hi,
this isn't about the carrier-bags, this is about the harrassment.
I also mentioned which shops it was in the subject-line.
I've been working as a shop-manager in Norway, and I know that only old
women brings old bags to the shop.
I would sometimes sit in the check-out, and I asked everyone, 'do you want a
carrier'.
And sometimes men would reply, 'Of course I want a carrier, do you think I'm
an old woman ("gammel kjærring" in Norwegian)'.
I don't think you take my complaint seriously.
And your spelling isn't even right.
Could you please escalate this complaint, as I've overheard that I'm being
used as a 'target guy', I think this could be some mobster-activity.
I've also had more or less similar complaints against Tesco from before,
which you neighter took serious.
So I'm going to put a lawyer on you if you don't take this serious now, if I
get the oppertunity later.
My patience with you is ran out, unfortunately.
Bag for life, and poppy-bags, this isn't what I contact you about, it's the
harassment.
Is this so difficult for you to understand?
Bags for life and poppy-bags are fine.
But only as long as you also have the regular bags.
But you have made this into a discussion about bags, when it really is about
harrassment, so you just make me more annoyed really.
Is 'customer-support' something that your company don't know what means?
Erik Ribsskog
On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 1:45 PM, Tesco Customer Service <
customer.service@tesco.co.uk> wrote:
> Dear Erik
>
> I'm sorry to hear that you have been having problems obtaining carrier
bags
> recently when you visit our Stores in Liverpool recently. I can understand
> how frustrating this must be for you.
>
> I have been unable to contact anyone as you have not said which stores you
> shop in. However, if you let me know I wold be more than happy to contact
> the stores concerned.
>
> However, If I might suggest that perhaps you may be able to purchase a Bag
> for Life when you visit one of our Stores. They start at 45pence and go up
> to over a £1.
>
> You would get Clubcard points for buying the bag, and an extra point in
> store every time that you used the bag. It would actually pay for itself
in
> no time at all.
>
> These bags are heavy duty and have special slots for bottles to stand up
in
> at the side so you can balance your shop.
>
> Once again, I'd like to apologise for any inconvenience this may have
> caused you.
>
> If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me at
> customer.service@tesco.co.uk quoting TES7755298X.
>
> Kind Regards
>
>
> Frances Brierley
> Customer Service Manager
> Tesco Customer Service
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: "Erik Ribsskog" <eribsskog@gmail.com>
> Date: 24 June 2010
> Subject: Complaint about you Tesco-shops at Clayton Sq. and Liverpool One,
> in Liverpool
>
> Hi,
>
> lately, your shops in Liverpool, (the two shops mentioned above), have
> stopped ordering enough carrier-bags.
>
> So I have to buy the poppy-bags, if I can find them.
>
> But, your representative, at Liverpool One, the other day, was harrassing
> the customers.
>
> She told me to put more food in the carriers, than I had done.
>
> I think you staff go to close.
>
> I'm from Norway, and when I studied in Sunderland, my flat-mates and
fellow
> exchange-students, from around Europe, told me I shouldn't drink the
> tap-water here.
>
> So I buy like 4 liters perhaps, (around 8 pints), of tap-water, in the
> shop,
> or carbonated water, or 'pop', if I can afford it, since I'm unemployed,
> and
> sometimes even lager.
>
> So Tesco can't expect me to carry like five kilos, in one carrier-bag,
> because they are very thin.
>
> I remember once, when I was a child, and lived in Mellomhagen, in Norway,
> and my mother sent me to the Co-op shop, (Samvirkelaget), to buy several
> liters of milk etc.
>
> And then the carrier-bag, tore apart, from the weight of the milk, when I
> was half-way home.
>
> I was maybe six years old.
>
> What are one supposed to do then.
>
> One can put all of this in ones pocket.
>
> One have to stand there and look stupid.
>
> Like I had to, untill my mother came to find me, maybe 15 minutes later.
>
> The woman who I met who lived close to where this happened, didn't want to
> give me a carrier.
>
> So I don't think you can expect people to not use enough carriers, to get
> ones shopping home, with the carriers in one piece.
>
> This is harassment and patronising, that your representatives do.
>
> This I wanted do complain about.
>
> This seems like something they would do in the Soviet-union.
>
> I used to be a shop-manager in Norway, (in Rimi), and if we ran out of
> carrier-bags, I would drive to a another Rimi-shop, and borrow
carrier-bags
> from them, untill we got more ourselves.
>
> This has happened to me three times, in the last week or two, in
Liverpool.
>
> And if I complain, then I'm being harrassed by inpolite shop-workers, who
> tell me to put more food, in each bag.
>
> Next time, I'll ask them to go home with me then, and pick up everything
> that falls out, when the bags tear from the weight of to much food in
them.
>
> And don't give me line that I got from the same shop-woman, about that I
> should save the enviroment.
>
> That's also to patronise your customers.
>
> I go to the shop to get food, not to be preached at.
>
> Is Tesco a food-shop or a radical environmental-organisation at war?
>
> Please explain this to me.
>
> And please get your shops to order enough carrier-bags.
>
> This is annoying, that you haven't got enough of them, and I think I'm
> going
> to shop a lot at Aldi, when that shop starts now this automn, in Liverpool
> City Center, because this never happened, when I lived in Sunderland, and
> shopped at Aldi there.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik Ribsskog
>
