Waitrose - the shop for you?

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Waitrose withdraws 'Essential' range after finding poor people in stores.



UK supermarket chain Waitrose has withdrawn its popular 'Essential' range after discovering that the cut-price products had led to a number of poor people shopping in their Stores.



The discount brand, launched in 2009 to help Waitrose's core customer base cope with the recession without having to downgrade one of their Range Rovers, was proving extremely successful. This success appears to have come at a price though, with the unwanted side effect of attracting the undesirable working class.



'At first it worked fine, our regular shoppers were delighted with the new range, and common people were still put off by the Waitrose branding,' explained marketing director Rupert Toss-Pott, 'But as we advertised more, and made the mistake of including the prices of products in our TV commercials, we began to see some undesirable characters appearing in our aisles, enticed in by the prospect of finding a tin of beans for under £15, which they previously hadn't expected from us. One horrid man even came in wearing a Duffle coat looking for a bacon sandwich. It was awful.'



The popularity of the 'Essential' range had seen it quickly expand to include affordable versions of many foodstuffs and household items. To make matters worse Waitrose also starting pointing out that many of their prices were the same as those found in Tesco's, attracting even more lower class shoppers and alienating many of their existing clientele. ââ,¬ËœIt was so demeaning finding out that I wasn't paying any more for my groceries than a common person from Clapham, moaned former Waitrose customer Emily Fortescue-Hamilton-Brown-Smythe. 'I've been forced to go back to doing my weekly shop at Fortnum & Mason now, just to make sure I don't accidentally purchase something that's buy-one-get-one-free.' 'Hopefully withdrawing the products and stopping the adverts will stop any additional commoners coming in,' continued Toss-Pott, 'but we still have the problem of getting rid of the ones that have already started shopping with us. They're still turning up, wandering around looking a bit lost and not buying anything. We're thinking of putting up signs outside pointing out that Lidl has some great deals on, or maybe we'll just put down some traps baited with chicken nuggets so we can catch them humanely and release them in Aldi.'