Customers at Tesco’s new low cost Jack’s stores have picked up some incredible bargains this week, including a central aisle offering full-body MRI scanners and ladies Hunter wellies in red. The store chain hopes to win back shoppers lost to Aldi and Lidl over the past five years, attracted by the serendipity of their central aisle products. Tesco now promises to be the “cheapest in town”.
When Spoofflé visited the Jack’s store in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire yesterday we found the Siemens 1.5T Avanto MRI scanner on offer for just £39.99, a five tonne machine with a normal list price of £420,000. Daniel Slater, a local vet, was thrilled at his purchase. ‘We haven’t even got an X-ray machine at the practice so this little beauty is going to totally change the way we work.’
Muriel Cointreau, 87, had bought the only other scanner at the store but was worried where she might put it. ‘I’m in a care home now,’ she told us, ‘so I hope they’ll let me keep it in the sitting room, there’s a little space by the TV.’ She was still examining it as were leaving and called us over. ‘Do you know what it is, dear?’ she asked.
Sixteen year old Bay Krettinius clutched a pair of Kalashnikov AK-47s and 600 rounds of ammunition at the checkout. ‘Oh yeah, I’m well pleased I am,’ he said. ‘£12.95 each? You’re ‘aving a laugh ain’t yer?’
Tesco Chief Executive Dave Lewis says that Jack’s will be a full-range, full-service supermarket, offering local produce and ‘something a little different in our customers’ shopping experience.’