A woman spotted supermarket security tags on skincare products for black skin. Laurelle Renwick-Smith, 31, realised black skincare products were security tagged next to what appeared to be untagged - more expensive skincare products - for white skin.
"I was walking down the aisle and noticed that there were BB creams for black and white women, " said Laurelle, a response officer for Haringey Council. "Only the boxes with black models on them were in a security box."
Laurelle saw the products in a security box at the Tesco store in Rainham, Essex, and initially walked past. But she went back to confirm what she saw.
Laurelle added: "It didn’t sit right with me so I went back to check if what I saw was really what I saw and, to my surprise and disappointment, it was. I’ve never seen this sort of thing before, only on social media not on my doorstep."
The video garnered nearly 500,000 views and 42,000 likes in a day with comments claiming the store is "racist", while others claimed the decision was "data-driven".
She added: "I didn’t expect it to go viral nor did I expect the blatantly racist comments under it."
A Tesco spokesperson said: “We are deeply sorry that this has happened, and these products should clearly not have been security tagged in this way. We work hard to ensure Tesco is a place where everyone feels welcome, and the tags have now been removed in this store.
"In addition, we have reiterated the importance of using security tags appropriately to all our stores.”
The store made it clear that there was no policy to tag the products in this way and this was a human error. In early August, another Tesco customer spotted the same thing where black skincare products were security tagged.
The store then apologised claiming that it was for loss prevention reasons and said they did not intend to offend anybody.
