The UK's biggest grocer is opening regional buying offices in the East, Midlands, North, South and South-West of England, as well as one in Wales.
Tesco is recruiting for the offices, each of which will have its own dedicated marketer and buying manager. The plan is to have the operations up and running by the end of the year.
The initiative will include regional counters, and will be advertised in-store. The supermarket has also launched a 'regional sourcing' website, offering profiles of suppliers and urging customers to recommend their favourite regional products. Tesco said it was too early to say whether it would be backed by advertising.
Tesco's efforts to position itself as a champion of local suppliers were recently dealt a blow in Wales when the retailer ran an in-store ad in Bangor which featured a range of Welsh produce and a claim that they were 'local'. This week the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint that 'local' food should mean produce sourced from the immediate area.
Food miles - the distance a product has travelled to its point of purchase - is becoming an increasingly important issue for consumers. Faced with the choice of a locally grown non-organic product or an imported organic product, 84% of people surveyed by the Soil Association opted for the former.
The Soil Association also found that in 2005 the value of independent and farm shops grew by 32%, while box schemes and farmers' markets increased in value by 22% and 10% respectively.
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