An ode to Tesco.

All supermarkets are great, but the best one is Tesco: its own-brand food is unpretentious and delicious, it has the best in-store bakery in the business, and its meal deal options are second to none…and for the sake of transparency, there was a big Tesco five minutes from my house when I was growing up, so much of this favouritism is down to proximity. But still, the Tesco of the 'before times' felt like home, it was well-stocked and welcoming. But that Tesco is gone now, and in its place stands a morbid, anxiety-inducing museum with every exhibit a reminder that you’re always precisely two metres away from death. There’s the trolley sanitation station where you wipe away the sickly residue of those who have come before you, then there are arrows on the ground directing your route around the store and hazard tape splits the aisles into two-metre chunks of ‘safe space’. Tesco employees march around the store holding signs that remind us to follow the one-way system and under no circumstances come within two metres of absolutely anyone. Notices adorn empty shelves informing shoppers that certain products are restricted “to help give everyone access to essential items” and overhead announcements warn that verbal and physical abuse of staff will not be tolerated. Yeah, it is pretty fucking bleak.

I now execute trips to Tesco at double speed, there are no detours or diversions or perusals. Most of the treats are still right there on the shelves, but all the pleasure has been sucked out of shopping for them. There’s no languid browsing, no time spent in the freezer aisle reading the back of every Halo Top tub, trying to figure out which one will taste most like real ice cream. No more lengthy equations in the alcohol aisle, calculating which bottle offers the most fruitful ratio of percentage to £. What I miss the most are the battles waged in the reduced section. The reduced section lives on, of course, but the rules are different. The battle for bargains cannot be effectively fought in the era of social distancing.

The reduced section is small, and at peak discounting time, it’s more of a bulging treasure trove than your standard supermarket shelf. The only way to conquer the reduced section is by rifling deep and with a feral determination, but nowadays there’s only space for one person to rifle at a time. The tragedy is, if someone makes it to the section before you, there’s nothing to do but wait patiently, the whole time hyper-aware that this person could sweep the entire stack of yellow-stickered food clean into their basket and that would just be fine and LEGAL. All you can do is feign interest in the cheese that lives two metres away and wait for your window, acting as though any of this full-price fromage actually has a shot at making it into the basket.

I always hated contending with other bargain hunters in the reduced section. If you got there just as the savings hit 70% and above (typically around 7pm), a small but determined crowd of similarly savvy shoppers would be forming. There is nothing more enticing than a heaving mound of dirt-cheap food, so naturally, the atmosphere was competitive; shoulders brushing, senses heightened, all jostling to grab the best swag. It is a battle fought entirely on the understanding that in exchange for cheap food, you relinquish your right to personal space. A hand will shoot over your shoulder at lightning speed to grab that mince you had your eye on. Another arm down by your knee swipes all the bags of 2p salad. A symphony of disingenuous ‘oops’, ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse mes ‘ chime as you’re elbowed out of the way in pursuit of discounts, discounts, discounts. It is a high-stakes free-for-all, but fuck me, when your weekly shop comes to a grand total of £5.37, it’s all worth it.

You can’t get away with this in the era of Covid-19. Our right to personal space isn’t up for negotiation, it’s our most valuable asset. Now that everything and everyone is covered in an invisible coating of death and disease, shopping is purely functional. There is an entirely new script for how to behave appropriately in public and we’re all out to prove that we’ve absolutely, definitely memorised all of our lines. Everyone is unfailingly polite, giving others an extravagantly wide birth and flashing apologetic smiles just to reassure strangers that we get it, we do, we know all the new rules, and we’re staying alert. Alas, this level of civility is at total odds with the every-man-woman-and-child-for-themselves energy of the reduced section.

There are so many things I want to do in Tesco once the lockdown is lifted. I want to pick up an avocado to see if it has the right amount of squish without fear of a manslaughter charge for germ spreading. I want to cruise across the store, zigzag up and down the aisles in both directions, take the road less travelled, and no longer be a slave to the floor arrows. I want to touch a freezer door handle or a self-service checkout screen without flinching. But most of all, I want to drink in that frenetic energy as a crowd gathers around a soon-to-be-restocked reduced section, safe in the knowledge that you’re all about to fight for the greatest gift of all: something for (next to) nothing.