Climate change protesters from This is Rigged 'steal food from Tesco' to give to public in Glasgow

Climate change protesters ‘stole food and roses’ from a Tesco store in Glasgow city centre on Wednesday and handed the goods out to passing members of the public.

Two activists dressed as Tesco workers on Wednesday and wore lanyards that read “Tesco: Very Little Help” with a picture of the company’s CEO Ken Murphy on them and a sign in Tesco’s font reading “Serving our customers, communities and planet a little better every day”.

It comes as part of a wave of actions which This Is Rigged are describing as “redistributive actions”.

The group is demanding that supermarkets slash prices to match March 2021 and that the Scottish Government fund and install a community food hub for every 500 households in Scotland.

The group handed out bread and roses as a nod to the speech by American women’s suffrage activist Helen Todd, in which she called for “bread for all, and roses too.”

In a statement released on social media, the group said: “We are asking for the bare minimum: our inalienable human right to baseline food security; but we are also asking for dignity. No longer will we beg for scraps from the tables of greedy CEOs.

“No longer will we be at the mercy of corporations who price us out of eating on a whim, dependent on them to provide us with our foundational needs. No longer will we tolerate a criminally incompetent government that refuses to address the crisis of food insecurity in this country.”

It comes as new research found that half of people receiving Universal Credit in Scotland have been unable to afford food in the last month.

The research, conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Trussell Trust, revealed that 35,900 people (7%) claiming Universal Credit in Scotland have been forced to use a food bank in the last month, and half (51%) ran out of food in the last month and couldn’t afford more.

Also, in the last three months, 20% of people claiming Universal Credit in Scotland were unable to cook hot food as they couldn’t afford to use the oven or other utilities.

The group have criticised the Tesco CEO for making a more than a £4m bonus while shop prices soar.

This is Rigged said that activists dressed as Tesco workers to point a finger at the company’s community commitments, which they claim are hypocritical.

It said that it aims to show the general public that price rises and excess security measures being implemented in shops are “inexcusable and demeaning, alongside the fact that the current cost of living crisis is inextricable from climate change”.

The protest group have vowed to escalate and continue to “redistribute food and essential goods” until their new demands are met.

Tesco and Police Scotland have been contacted for comment.