Tesco removes Marmite and other essentials from shelves over Unilever Brexit row

Brexit means Brexit, as Theresa May has repeatedly reminded us in recent weeks.

What else it means remains a mystery - although we were all promised £350 million extra for the NHS a week, so that's definitely going to happen, right?

One thing we didn't see coming was this, on the Tesco website:

Yes, everyone's favourite yeasty treat has been taken off the website of the UK's biggest retailer. What's going on?

Well, it turns out that global mega-company Unilever is having a bit of a ruck with Tesco. As you'll have noticed if you went on holiday anywhere other than Hull this Summer, the pound in your pocket is worth a wallop less than it used to be - 17% to be precise. Not only has it made sangria that bit more expensive, it's eaten into the bottom lines of companies that do business both in the UK and elswhere - like Unilever, or almost any other business bigger than a lemonade stand.

Unilever have responded by trying to increase their prices, which Tesco - and reportedly other retailers - didn't take too kindly to at all. They've gone the extra mile, though, removing Unilever products from the website, and refusing to restock them in their supermarkets until a resolution is found. In the usually fairly placid world of retail, this is essentially a declaration of war.

Apparently, these pricing disputes are fairly routine, but seldom this public. Whether or not this can be resolved quickly, we can't say, but if we were you, we'd get ready for some black market Marmite trading. 

So what do we stand to lose if this isn't sorted out, and other chains follow suit? Here's a list of the 41 items Unilever produce, that Tesco have binned for now:

Bertolli
Comfort
Domestos
Dove
Flora
Hellman's mayonnaise
Knorr
Lipton's
Lynx
Magnum ice cream
Persil
Sure
Surf
Ben & Jerry's
Brut
Carte D'Or
Cif
Cornetto
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
Impulse
Marmite
Maille mustard
Pond's
Radox
Simple
Solero
St Ives
Stork
TreSemme
Timotei
VO5
Vaseline
Viennetta
Wall's
Bovril
Colman's
Elmlea
HB ice cream
Lyon's
PG Tips
Pot Noodles

So, we'll smell, have greasy hair, not have any mustard or ice cream or TEA, and students will be deprived of the crucial nourishment of pot noodles.

But at least we took back control, right?