Supermarkets are holding us hostage to their loyalty card discount schemes

Forget Mark Zuckerberg, it's Tesco we need to worry about

There’s two things you should know about me: 1) I’m in denial about my own stubbornness and 2) I really hate carrying any form of purse or wallet.

Despite point 2, I only started using Apple Pay this year. This was partly due to point 1, along with my inherent hatred of downloading apps or adding anything to my already overwhelming phone screen.

So now I’ve been dragged into the modern world, I finally have the freedom to walk into my local Waitrose without so much as a handbag. However, these damn supermarkets seem determined to weigh me back down with their loyalty card schemes.

In the same way I take pride in never having been to Winter Wonderland, I’m proud of the fact I don’t own a Clubcard, a Nectar card, an Advantage card or any other piece of plastic that farms me for my personal data.

Now, we all know the joke that is food prices right now and as someone who doesn’t have anyone to split their bills with and just had pasta, tuna and sweetcorn for dinner, I’m very aware.

I’m also conscious that a lot of my go-to items now have two price tags on the shelf. One for us and one for them. Them being the loyalty card owners.

It was only in Tesco that I first noticed it and due to that establishment ranking as D tier on my supermarket list, it was a pill I could swallow when I sporadically visited an Express store for some emergency chocolate buttons.

Then, I noticed it happen in Sainsburys and I’m not talking like a 20p difference, I’m talking pounds. The kind of pounds that would allow me to get my favourite Innocence Orange Juice back after a 7 month hiatus.

Now, Morrisons has announced its new loyalty card price reductions and sorry, but am I the only one who is up in arms at this farming of our personal data?

It’s one thing collecting points - I’m happy to opt out of that - but with the cost of a weekly shop pushing families closer and closer to the food bank, is it not immoral to lower prices only in exchange for personal data?

According to The Grocer, “Supermarkets harvest customer data through promotions funded by their suppliers. This boosts income through enhanced sales, while simultaneously allowing supermarkets to monetise the data by selling it back to the suppliers who effectively funded its capture in the first place.”

And that there is the true cost of your ‘loyalty’. We’re all paranoid about our phones listening in on our private conversations, turns out a hidden mic isn’t needed when we’re giving away our shopping lists on a weekly basis.

Yes, I know I own an iPhone and have an Instagram account, but this just feels so blatant, so in your face that the stubbornness in me refuses to back down.

I can live without my Innocent Orange Juice, but as we head into winter and our electricity bills climb once again, the majority of people will have no choice but to sign up.

So, for that reason, my solo protest will continue.