Early indications for the first quarter of 2019 indicate that sales of tripe may have risen for the first time since 1954.
Although tripe sales have fallen for 241 successive quarters, Tripe Marketing Board chairman Sir Norman Wrassle said it now looked as though tripe may have “finally turned the corner”.
Speaking at a meeting of the Westhaughton Women’s Guild last night, Sir Norman expressed cautious optimism about the rise, whilst warning that provisional sales figures from retailers still had to be validated and that there were still four days left of the quarter.
He attributed the rise to the TMB’s decision last month to encourage panic buying as the deadline for Brexit approached on 29 March. “We deliberately fostered an image of calm for the entire period up to the beginning of March, then switched to promoting panic,” he said.
Sir Norman said the subsequent decision by the Government to delay Brexit meant that the TMB may now be able to refine what he called its ‘Keep Calm then Panic’ strategy over the next few weeks to ensure that the increase in sales continued.
He was speaking on the eve of his departure for a short TMB fact-finding visit to Lanzarote. “It’s almost two years since we last visited, so I will be interested to see if we can unearth any new facts,” he said.