Tesco cuts price on 30 own brand products including pasta and oil as supermarket wars continue
Tesco has announced another round of price cuts on its own-brand pasta and cooking oil as it sees deflation making its way through to cupboard essentials.
The UK’s biggest supermarket is dropping the price of 30 products, with 15p off 500g and 1kg packs of own-brand pasta, 14p off its one litre vegetable oil and 15p off its one litre sunflower oil.
It follows a number of supermarkets dropping the price of some lines of bread and butter last week in response to falling commodity prices.
Sainsbury’s and Tesco also recently cut the price of milk by at least 5p, followed by Aldi, Lidl and Asda.
The Tesco cuts come as grocery inflation leapt by more than 19 per cent in March compared with a year ago, as energy and supply chain costs were passed on to shoppers.
This comes after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced it will investigate whether a “failure in competition” is seeing consumers overcharged for groceries and fuel.
The watchdog said it would be stepping up its work in the grocery sector to determine whether a “failure in competition is contributing to grocery prices being higher than they would be in a well-functioning market”.
Tesco announced its latest price cuts as Downing Street hosted a “Farm to Fork Summit”, bringing together farmers’ representatives and food and retail trade bodies along with supermarket chiefs to talk about the Government’s goal of boosting co-operation across the supply chain and the sector’s resilience – and tackling rampant food inflation.
Tesco group chief product officer Ashwin Prasad said: “As we see deflation coming through on key cupboard essentials such as pasta and cooking oil, we’re pleased to pass on these savings to customers.
“We hope that by reducing prices on these 30 products which are bought week-in, week-out, we can help customers spend less.”
Josie Clarke – Press Association