Every little leaf helps

Fundraising | 2 Apr 2008

Tesco may have announced this week that its 2007 Charity of the Year partnership with the British Red Cross has raised £4.4m, but in Manchester the supermarket has contributed to raising cash for charity in a more obscure, albeit rather less lucrative manner.

The tale began last month, when Howard Cooper of Cale Green in Stockport made a typing error while ordering brussels sprouts from Tesco’s online home delivery service, requesting 0.01kg of the veg instead of 0.1kg.

Tesco’s slogan is ‘every little helps’, and it lived up to this ethos by furnishing Mr Cooper with a single solitary sprout, neatly bagged, weighed and priced at 1p.

The sprout then gained cult status when the story appeared in a local newspaper, so Cooper put it up for sale on eBay, where it sold for the princely sum of £7.50, with proceeds going to Stockport-based homelessness charity the Wellspring.

Mr Cooper said he couldn’t believe a member of Tesco’s staff had gone to the trouble of finding a correctly-sized sprout.

“Obviously it was my mistake but we were rolling on the floor thinking that someone must have sifted through a load of sprouts to get the right weight - perhaps even peeled a few leaves off.”

He added: “To be honest, you’d have thought that someone would realise it was a mistake and call to check - after all, I don’t think hamsters are yet able to order on the internet.

“We could have used the cash to buy 750 more sprouts but we thought the Wellspring was a more deserving cause.”

The Stockport sprout incident is not the first time this humble vegetable has sold on eBay.

In January 2006, a sprout left over from a Tearfund supporter’s Christmas dinner was auctioned on the site, raising an astounding £99.50.

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