Grocer Fined for Selling Strawberries Too Cheaply!
Via the Twitter feed of Keep Food Legal, the nonprofit dedicated to "culinary freedom," comes this confusing tale of commerce from the U.K.: The supermarket chain Tesco was fined beacoup bucks (plenty o' pounds?) for the horrifying act of selling strawberries at half-price for longer than they sold them at full-price.
That sort of practice runs afoul of Britain's Office of Fair Trading, which says that having sales that last longer than the original price is offered is "misleading" to customers. Even on seasonal products that, you know, ripen and rot on the shelves.
Got that? The chain has been fined for making things cheaper (to show just how rotten the company is, they even threw in cartons of free cream in certain cases)!
It's a reminder about how agricultural and price-setting policy tends to be in most countries, including the U.S. Going back at least to FDR, ag policy almost always revolves around making things more expensive for consumers rather than cheaper. All in the name of fairness.