After a challenging few years for the UK’s largest supermarket, which has seen the company investigated by the Groceries Adjudicator, embroiled in the horsemeat scandal and losing market share to discount retailers, figures released by Kantar Worldpanel last week show a return to growth for Tesco.

Figures show the supermarket increased sales by 1.3% in the 12 weeks ending 9th October; sales were up 0.8% on last year and Tesco attracted 228,000 new shoppers, expanding its market share to 28.2% of the UK market – its first year-on-year gain since 2011.

However, farmers critical of the tactics Tesco has used to compete with the discounters have reacted with concern to the news. On Friday, the former chair of the National Pig Association criticised Tesco’s use of ‘fake’ farm names on its meat and fresh produce.

In March, Tesco introduced blanket names of fictional farms for its produce - ‘Nightingale Farms’ for its greens, ‘Woodside Farms’ for pig meat and several others for different product categories. Farmers complained that the use of British sounding farm names on the labelling would mislead customers into thinking that the produce was all from the UK, when in fact it comes from suppliers in a number of different countries. In July, the NFU made a formal complaint to National Trading Standards over the ‘fake’ farm branding, which is also used by discount retailers including Aldi.

In August, Trading Standards ruled that the labelling was beyond its remit, but a spokesperson confirmed that the office has since advised the NFU on where to refer its complaint.

On Friday, former NPA chair Richard Longthorp said the supermarket appeared to have reneged on commitments to transparency made after the horsemeat scandal in 2013, when processed meats being sold as beef in Tesco and other supermarkets were found to contain unlabelled pig and horse meat. Longthorp said, “It wasn’t really about horsemeat. It was about Trust!.. [Now Tesco] are using tertiary brands (aka flags of convenience) such as ‘Woodside Farms’, to trick their customers into thinking that the meat they are buying is British. Well there can’t be that many pig farms in Denmark or Holland called ‘Woodside’ can there?”

Tesco has stood by its branding policy and rejected NFU’s claims that it could confuse customers, noting that, “Every product is clearly labelled with its country of origin and the Union Jack is prominently displayed on all British produce."