Tesco removed the Scottish flag from its strawberries and people are furious

Tesco is under fire after it replaced the Scottish saltire with the Union flag on punnets of strawberries and raspberries grown north of the border.

The criticism started when pro-independence voter Eileen Brown, who has now deleted her account, tweeted the supermarket to ask why the flag had gone from her berries, and that she suspected casual racism.

While the supermarket chain admitted, on social media, that it made this change because of complaints from English customers who said that English grown strawberries did not have the St George cross on it, an official spokesperson said the change was to provide "consistency".

However, many in Scotland were not happy, and some even accused Tesco of being xenophobic.

Tesco's tweets caused a storm of criticism on social media, with many calling on Tesco to reverse their decision.

However, Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon is not overly bothered. She told BuzzFeed that common sense will prevail and while she is very proud of the saltire, she tends not to make purchasing decisions on the basis of the flag on the packaging.

Strawberries from Scotland are just the best strawberries, that’s why we should eat them – not because of the flag that happens to be on their packaging

A spokesman for Tesco said that the tweets were sent in error and instead the change was "to provide consistency for customers".

The country of origin is also clearly displayed on pack.

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