The Mail on Sunday are running an article about how Peacocks are selling a maternity t-shirt with the words ‘made in Britain’ emblazoned on the front, while the shirt itself is made in India (see here). What is great about this article is that it tells of the anger and dismay from a consumer perspective.
Those that follow our blog will know that it is a bugbear of our that many products are promoted because of their British credentials but are often found to abroad. The fashion industry is one that suffers most from this. Brands like Jack Wills and TM Lewin are keen to show off a proud UK heritage but in fact their products have little to do with Britain as far as manufacturing is concerned. When I saw the image of the £10 T-shirt from Peacocks I had to firstly wonder who in there right mind would wear that fashion disaster and secondly did anyone really believe that it was made in the UK because of the rather hackneyed slogan. We have seen far more deceptive non-British products than this on sale (our ironing board for instance).
Either way, what is great to see is that consumers are making a fuss. It tells the retailers in no uncertain terms that we do care about what is made in Britain. I predict a lot more of these types of stories in the media before the year is out. Retailers beware!
– Emily
I noticed that you called on Which to help with the distinction of Made in Britain, but they seem as confused as ever. On a recent Mower article they seemed to be promoting Qualcast as a British product! I quote my reply to their Conversation site where they have an article on “Gardening tools using confusing branding”
“I think Which is just as bad at misleading. In the recent review of lawnmowers Which states ”
“The Qualcast brand was started in 1920 and is still going strong”.
What is not mentioned is that Qualcast started out as a British company but is now Chinese owned and manufactured! And many of the other products mentioned are not British anymore. With new EEC directives requiring Country of Origin surely Which can inform us of the companies which are British owned and/or manufacturing in the UK. Japanese company Makita has a big production facility in Telford and German company Bosch make their mowers here. With the resurgence of Made in Britain at least Which should be supporting it even if our Government does not.
The Bradshaws are a British family who spent a year trying to exist on British produce. They are now trying to get support for Made in Britain. Many manufactures have signed up but the Government has not! You might like to support our manufacturing and sign up your support too, find them at:-
http://britishfamily.co.uk/ ”
Perhaps you the Bredshaws could influence Which to support Made in Britain in their reviews, they after all did a survey on if a brand was marked Made in Britain would you buy it.
A site that I have found useful for British goods is
http://ukmade.wordpress.com/
They list “Been and Gone” which gives information on past producers and if they have been taken over and where they now manufacture, and others that would like to think they still have UK production such as “Richarsons of Sheffield” As the site says
“production is now in the Far East. The company retains ‘Sheffield’ in its name which is an outright deception of British consumers and should not be allowed.”
My thoughts too!
We have noticed that Which often state that things are made in the UK when they are not. It was one of thier misleading articles that lead to a little ding-dong with the iCandy, the pushchair brand. This was later bought up in a One Show interview we gave.
I would love to say that we had any ability to influence Which but I suspect that this would be a fight that would lose a lot of sleep over. Plus, we have plenty of other fish to fry.
The UK made blog is fantastic!
The funny thing about this Peacocks story, is that Peacocks do sell a range of cotton t shirts that are actually Made In Britain. And a few dresses too. I found them in my local East Grinstead branch. So why didn’t they have this Maternity Shirt made by the UK suppliers?!?! (I had a bit of a tete-a-tete with them as they label the range clearly in store, but not on their website, grrrr)