tesco childrens veg butternut squash stars

There is nothing new under the sun, not least that observation (and the contents of my chiller). But that doesn’t stop me from keeping up with all the important developments in retail. In addition to gratuitous redundancies, plummeting profitability and the relentless march of the Germans, these trends include growing public awareness of the fact food is bad for you.

If this sounds rather a bold statement, you should remember that I do spend quite a lot of time with Sunday supplements, and not all of it in the dark place that you are currently imagining. To my certain knowledge, there is no food group that the Mail on Sunday has not declared a significant health hazard in the past 10 years, quite often on the same day that the Sunday Times declared it a new superfood.

This all makes ranging decisions rather tricky, but happily for me the main food group consumed by my customers is booze, and any attempt to regulate that would be crushed by an overwhelming parliamentary majority in the shape of Ken Clarke MP (inter alia).

Now where was I? Oh yes, rambling. Not unlike the reactions of the spiced-pumpkin-latte-drinking classes to Mr Lewis’s latest plot to con children into eating repulsive vegetables by chopping them up into brightly-coloured shapes.

Apparently, sales to Brexiters have rocketed, so I have put Pavlina to work carving veg into pretty shapes so that MPs can understand them. Out of respect for our political leadership, I insisted that she create something for Mrs May first. I’m not absolutely sure what Pavlina crafted from those two kiwifruit and the huge cucumber but I got an awfully rude note from No 10. Some people simply have no concern for the wellbeing of the nation.