‘Shana To-van’! Specially wrapped Tesco lorry wishes community: ‘Happy Jewish New Year’

A specially decorated lorry operated by the UK’s largest supermarket chain is travelling across the UK wishing the Jewish community a ‘Happy Jewish New Year’.

Booker, a wholesaler branch of Tesco subsidiary and Britain’s biggest food and drink wholesaler, wrapped one of its vehicles in special livery to celebrate Rosh Hashanah.

It features bright writing saying, ‘Happy Jewish New Year’ on each side of the cab, while on the top above the driver’s seat, it reads ‘Booker and Tesco wishes its colleagues and customers a happy Jewish New Year’. It also has displays of apples and honey, the shofar and pomegranates.

The lorry was wrapped in Warrington, driven down from the North West and unveiled last week at Booker’s major distribution centre in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, from where it will spend a number of weeks driving the length and breadth of England delivering food and drink products to catering and retail businesses.

Unveiling the lorry was David Ward, Tesco’s regulatory, ethics and compliance legal director and member of the New North London Synagogue in Finchley, together with Jonny McQuarrie, Booker chief operations officer.

Ward has played a major role in establishing a Jewish colleague community at Tesco in the past year. As well as helping oversee the launch of the New Year lorry, he hosts regular meet ups, runs educational events and welcomed Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich to their Welwyn Garden City headquarters for a packed out talk to more than 300 Tesco colleagues in April.

He said: “It’s a fantastic gesture from the team at Booker at this important time of year. It’s exciting that Booker and Tesco colleagues will see it in all its glory – but it’s also great for Jewish and non-Jewish customers to see it when they are out and about. It’s a great sign of a passionate commitment to diversity and inclusion that both Tesco and Booker are very proud of, with some great work being done to make Jewish colleagues and members of all other faiths feel part of a dedicated community at their workplace.”

Jonny McQuarrie, who has championed the wrapping of lorries in a number of different liveries including Pride, Eid and Black History Month, with one for Diwali to come later in the year, said: “This livery is really personal for our Jewish communities, celebrates our networks and the feedback from customers has been fantastic so far as traditionally, businesses don’t usually do this sort of thing – it’s something quite different. We look forward to this truck passing through many parts of the UK.”