Supermarket Tesco has launched a nationwide search to find…. a can of beans!
It is willing to pay £500 for an original can of its own Value brand beans launched ten years ago – even though the original price was just 17 pence.
The supermarket wants it to take pride of place in the reception of Tesco’s head office to mark the tenth anniversary of what has become the most successful product line ever launched by Tesco.
The beans are symbolic as they were among the first products to be launched bearing the Value name – but not one single can in its original blue and white packaging remains at Tesco
Since then, the Value range, developed to provide shoppers with the cheapest, and most economical way to buy common household items with a guarantee of quality, has become the supermarket’s top seller Said Tesco commercial director John Gildersleeve: "Customers bought tens of millions of these cans because they slashed the cost of buying beans, undercutting rivals by a large margin..
"There’s a good chance that someone, somewhere will still have a can stashed away in a loft or a basement.
"Paying £500 for a can of beans which cost 17 pence ten years ago will undoubtedly provide some lucky customer with the best return on their investment that they have ever made.
"However, it’s very important to us because that one can of beans will represent the million of people all over the UK who have brought up their families using the low cost products."
"We want to put the can on plinth behind glass with a special plaque. To many it will just be a can of beans, but for us, it was the pioneer product which provided millions of customers with better value that ever before".
Since being launched the packaging on the tin has slightly changed. The original tin being sought has ‘value baked beans in tomato sauce’ written in lower case on the front.
The tin is 11 cms high, weighs 420 grams and has the serial numbers BB03 LJ001 or VBT L3126 on the tin.
So important is the quest to find the tin that a special ‘Beans Response Centre’ has been set up by Tesco.
Anyone who thinks they have an original tin should write to ‘Tesco Value Beans, Just Julia Ltd, Unit 30/31 Hertford Industrial Estate, Caxton Hill, Hertford, Herts SG13 7ZQ’ by June 1st – three weeks before Tesco Value’s official birthday celebrations begin.
The original tin was launched on June 21 1993 along with 40 other products which formed the core of the Value line range.
These included skinless chicken breast fillets, eggs, orange juice, butter, cheddar cheese, ham, mushrooms, and bananas.
Anyone buying all 41 products 10 years ago would have paid £19.31 but amazingly the same products today would cost a shopper just £12.90 – a saving of £6.41.
If the prices of all the 41 items had risen with standard inflation then today they would have cost £24.91.
And amazingly, a tin of Value Beans costs just nine pence today – eight pence cheaper than when they were launched.
Added Tesco’s John Gildersleeve: "Nearly 10 million of our 14 million weekly customers buy Value line items with the rest of their shopping which is why we’re taking the birthday celebrations so seriously."
So successful is the range today that it has grown to include 1202 items including clothing, domestic and other household goods such as cleaning utensils and photographic film.
As well as appealing to cost conscious shoppers Tesco Value items are bought by pop stars, film stars, and multi millionaires.
