Melons feel the squeeze at Tesco
By Libby Brooks
Monday May 3, 1999
The Guardian
The supermarket psychologists who brought us the theories of trolley
daze and aisle alignment, who calculate the relative spend increase
induced by the smell of freshly baked bread, have surpassed
themselves: they have entered the realm of the psycho-sexual.
As a consequence, Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, has
asked its suppliers to grow smaller melons after focus groups of
shoppers revealed that shoppers subconsciously selected fruit
according to the trend in breast size.
After investigating a marked drop in melon sales, a retail
psychologist's report for Tesco suggested that the modern preference
for smaller breasts, as modelled by the likes of the superwaif Kate
Moss, is informing customers' decisions to reject larger melons.
The company has instructed growers in Spain to produce galia melons of
no more than 0.55kg, rather than the 1kg melons that were proving slow
to sell.
A Tesco spokesman yesterday said the findings surprised him but
insisted that the sales results spoke for themselves.
'Since we introduced the smaller melons two months ago we have sold
more than a million.'
The possibility of a subconscious relationship between breast and
melon size was first raised by a member of an all-female focus group,
set up when Tesco buyers sought to find out why customers consistently
picked the smallest fruit from store displays.
The theory was then tested by the retail psychologist, who found that
seven out of 10 women questioned agreed that breast size was 'the most
likely subconscious factor when selecting size of melon'. Half of the
women went further, attesting that breast size was a conscious thought
when choosing melons.
Most of the women believed that the modern obsession with small-
breasted models made it more 'comforting' to choose smaller melons.
Gender proved irrelevant to the subconscious influence: an all-male
focus group produced similar results.
The report also noted that customers liked to feel around the 'blossom
end', the nipple-like scar where the flower fell off during growth
claiming that the relative softness of this part of the melon proved a
good indicator of ripeness.
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