Why I'll never buy anything from Baxters ever again – Helen Martin

Throughout my life as a teenager and carrying on to my 50s, I often saw Christmas food hamper gifts containing Baxters soup, and other products.

Helen Martin has stopped buying goods from Baxters

They were recognised as high-quality tinned goods and many Scots felt proud of such a national producer.

What folk didn’t necessarily realise was that Baxters regarded itself as “British”. That became obvious when the now late Gordon Baxter donated £10,000 to Better Together in the lead-up to the 2014 Indy referendum. It was funding that supported Ruth Davidson’s campaign to encourage people to vote “No”.

In July 2020 Boris Johnson, in his mini “Scottish tour”, visited Baxters in Fochabers. He was trying to boost the UK now that he was knackering the economy with Brexit and particularly because, with our Scottish government election coming up in May 2021, he was trying to persuade people not to vote for the SNP.

Obviously that didn’t work, and what he did achieve was to encourage many Scots to avoid any goods from Baxters. Any company who welcomed Johnson could have been rejected.

Unfortunately, I made a terrible mistake a week ago. I bought a jar of tomato chutney. It was only when I put it in the cupboard at home, I saw it was Baxters.

It wasn’t until later when I read the news that Ruth Davidson had been appointed as a non-executive director at Baxters that the chutney went straight in the bin. I’ll never buy a Baxters item again.

They export around the world but I hope Brexit brings them a loss.

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