World Cup And Mini Heatwave Promise Biggest BBQs In Years This Weekend

Brits are set to turn the weekend into a huge nationwide World Cup BBQ party.

With temperatures set to soar into the mid 20s and the start of England’s World Cup campaign on Saturday night most shoppers have one things on their minds for the weekend – stocking up for BBQ parties.

Tesco beer category spokeswoman Natasha Pitman said: “Fantastic weather and the world’s biggest sporting event will help create a real carnival atmosphere across Britain starting this weekend.

“The mere mention of a sunny weekend from weather forecasters is enough to change shopping plans and judging by early sales we believe many people will be enjoying al fresco dining this weekend.

“But of course on Saturday night there’s also the greatly anticipated England v Italy game so we are preparing for what could be the biggest BBQ party nights for several years.

“We’ve brought in extra supplies to our depots to make sure stores can be stocked up for customers at the drop of a hat.

“Britain’s gardens will be alive with the sound of parties and the smell of sizzling food for the next three days at least.”

Since Wednesday morning sales of BBQ food, salad vegetables, ice cream, beer, wine, Pimms have been the most popular items at Tesco.

Also in high demand have been water, disposable BBQs, charcoal and sun creams and after sun lotion.

Tesco’s predicted sales uplifts for this weekend (versus last weekend) are as follows:

• Steaks – demand up 140 per cent
• Pimms – 200 per cent up
• Bags of charcoal and instant BBQs – 150 per cent up
• BBQ chicken packs - 60 per cent up
• Sausages – 15 per cent up
• Marinade - 20 per cent up
• Packets of halloumi cheese – 10 per cent up
• Ice lollies – 10 per cent up
• Tubs of ice cream – 30 per cent up
• Bags of lettuce - 20 per cent up
• Cucumbers - 25 per cent up
• Punnets of strawberries – 5 per cent up
• Bottles of wine - 15 per cent up
• Bottles/cans of beer and cider - 35 per cent up
• Bottles of sun cream - 15 per cent up

To mark the start of the World Cup Tesco has extended its beer range accordingly to include nearly 30 different brews from around the world.

Included are beers from World Cup participating nations England, Brazil, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Holland, USA, Greece, Australia, Argentina, Mexico, Portugal, and Japan.

Other beers come from South Africa, the Czech Republic, Singapore, India, Belgium, Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Scotland, Jamaica, Thailand, Peru, Nigeria, and Turkey.

Note to editors:

The UK’s unpredictable summers have given many food retailers a major headache in planning which types of fare to put out on their shelves.

Tesco now has a unique weather predicting system to help get the right products on the shelves for customers and save hundreds of thousands of pounds in food wastage.

The automated store ordering system, as it is known, combines weather data and customer behaviour over the last five years to produce pinpoint accurate predictions for demand in stores across the UK.

It can calculate accurately how much sales change in a region for every degree of temperature and every hour of sunshine. The system updates three times a day and within 30 minutes can re-calculate what foods need to be on the shop floor.

For more information please contact the Tesco Press Office on 01992 644645

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