Which? campaign brings clearer food pricing and more budget groceries
Tesco is adding unit pricing to its Clubcard price labelling, supermarkets are stocking more budget groceries in their convenience stores, and politicians have vowed to make food and drink pricing clearer - all thanks to Which? supporters.
Our Affordable Food For All campaign launched just over a year ago as the country faced the worst cost of living crisis in a generation.
Since then, more than 113,000 people have signed our petition urging supermarkets to take action - and, as a result, two major supermarkets have committed to stocking budget ranges in their smaller convenience stores and the UK's largest grocer has begun making its pricing clearer.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is the primary competition regulator, has also asked supermarkets to make prices clearer, and the government has promised to revamp the rules around unit pricing.
Tesco adds unit pricing to Clubcard offers
Our campaign called for clear, fair and transparent pricing so shoppers could more easily compare value.
It came after our research into unit pricing (for example the price per 100g or 100ml) showed 72% of people couldn't identify the cheapest fizzy drinks in a range of real-life examples.
Our findings contributed towards the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)'s July announcement that it would clamp down on supermarket pricing. The regulator called on the government to reform unit pricing legislation and wrote to retailers not fully complying with the law asking them to make changes or risk enforcement action.
It said because of issues with unit pricing compliance, as well as the rules themselves, shoppers may be finding it hard to spot and compare the best deals.
Now, after months of Which? campaigning, Tesco has finally started adding unit pricing to its Clubcard Price promotions.
Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: 'Which? has campaigned through the cost of living crisis for supermarkets to make pricing clearer so shoppers can easily find the best value deals at a time when so many have struggled to put food on the table.
'The lack of unit pricing on Tesco’s Clubcard offers was a glaring omission and we warned that this approach could be breaking the law last summer, so it’s good to see the nation’s largest supermarket stepping up to do the right thing by making this important change.
'We look forward to seeing this rolled out quickly across all stores and online so shoppers can benefit as soon as possible. The government also needs to now update outdated pricing rules so all shoppers can easily compare value.'
Plans to reform the Price Marking Order, which governs the rules, are being drawn up by the Government.
Supermarkets act on budget groceries
Our campaign also called for supermarkets to stock budget-range groceries across all stores, but particularly in areas where people most need support.
Working with the University of Leeds, we produced the Priority Places For Food Index - a map showing the places where people were most likely to need support accessing affordable food. This helped us identify the areas that would benefit the most from our campaign work.
We held events in Parliament and wrote to MPs to help gather support among politicians. We used a team of mystery shoppers to show how supermarkets failed to make cheaper food ranges available to those most at-risk of food poverty.
We called on Which? supporters to help check exactly where budget groceries were available - and they helped in their hundreds. They also fired off thousands of targeted tweets to pressure the supermarkets to act.
It led to Morrisons committing to stock up to 40 budget grocery items in 500 of its smaller Morrisons Daily stores.
Sainsbury's followed suit, announcing it would stock up to 18 budget-range items in about 200 of its Sainsbury's Local stores.
Tesco also pledged to stock 50 cheaper groceries than before in its smaller Express stores, although these aren't all from its cheapest budget range.
As you can see from this video, though, much more still needs to be done.
The CMA has also highlighted that not all shoppers are able to benefit fully from strong competition, particularly those who cannot travel to large stores or shop online and, therefore, may rely on higher-priced convenience stores.
- Find out more: which is the cheapest supermarket?
Which supermarkets need to do more?
There's still more to be done, and Which? will continue to put pressure on the supermarkets that haven't gone far enough.
Our latest research shows that 78% of adults in the UK are taking actions to reduce how much they spend on food as a result of increased food prices and the cost of living crisis.
The most common changes are looking out for food on promotion, buying more own-label budget-range items and trading down to cheaper alternatives.
Alarmingly, almost one in six (16%) said their household was skipping meals.
Clearly, this means there's still more to be done. In particular, we want to see:
- Asda commit to stocking budget groceries as it rolls out its new smaller stores across the country.
- Tesco putting more budget ranges into its smaller convenience stores, particularly in areas that need it most.
Find out more: how much more do you pay in convenience stores?
What about loyalty pricing?
The CMA has also launched an investigation into supermarket loyalty pricing (for example, Sainsbury's Nectar and Tesco Clubcard prices, which give loyalty scheme members access to lower prices than are available to non-members).
This is after we shared our findings of a June 2023 Which? investigation into supermarket loyalty pricing which tracked the pricing history of dozens of member-only offers at Tesco and Sainsbury's over six months, and found that almost a third were at their 'regular' price for less than half that time.
Our research found instances where supermarkets' loyalty offers could have given shoppers the impression that savings were more substantial than they really were.
The regulator's investigation will look at how the growth in loyalty pricing is affecting consumers and competition in the groceries sector.
- Do you want to see your supermarket take action? Sign our petition
This story was originally published on 15 February 2024. It was updated on 21 February 2024 with the news that Tesco is now adding unit pricing to its Clubcard promotions.
