Ocado Retail and Sainsbury’s have announced another round of price reductions and promotion initiatives as food inflation continues its downward trajectory.
Ocado is cutting the price of 200 items by an average of 8%. Examples include a four-pack of Heinz beans being reduced from £4 to 3.75, Copella cloudy apple juice reduced from £2.80 to £2, and Quaker rolled porridge oats reduced from £1.75 to 1.50.
Ocado Retail CEO, Hannah Gibson, commented: “Ocado is known for our amazing service and unbeatable choice – and delivering great value is just as important to us.
“Many of the products we’ve reduced today will help with those back-to-school shops and include big-name brands, Ocado Own-Range and M&S items too. We’re committed to offering our customers reassuringly good value and are working hard to add more products to the Big Price Drop soon.”
Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s revealed today that it was adding 40 more products to its Aldi Price Match scheme, taking the total to over 400. Additions include a range of Sainsbury’s soups, burger buns and bread, as well as sweet treats like Bramley Apple Pies.
The retailer has also extended its Nectar Prices promotion into the frozen foods category for the first time, and expanded its ‘Pocket Friendly Prices’ campaign to 55 products across most of its convenience stores.
Sainsbury’s Chief Executive, Simon Roberts, said: “We’re continuing to do all we can to battle inflation and as costs fall, so do our prices. We’re passing savings on as fast as we can, wherever we can, so that customers get the very best prices when they shop with us.”
He added: “With our biggest ever Aldi Price Match and Nectar Prices campaigns, whatever you’re shopping for, you will always be getting great value at Sainsbury’s.”
Office for National Statistics (ONS) data published this month showed that the inflation rate in the food and non-alcoholic beverages category eased from 17.3% in June to 14.8% in July as supermarkets began to cut the price of some everyday items to reflect falling commodity costs.
However, in recent weeks, analysts have raised concerns that the current decline in food price inflation could start to slow in the months ahead as new cost pressures emerge.
As well as Russia’s grain blockade, the recent heatwave in Europe is expected to impact harvest yields in key growing regions. Farmers in the UK have also warned that local harvests of wheat, oilseed rape, potatoes and other crops have been hit by the cool, wet summer, adding to food inflation pressures.
NAM Implications:
- All ‘positive moves’…
- But ‘success’ will be determined by shopping behaviour in the aisles.
- All driven by an overall perception of meaningful/needed price cuts…
- …on SKUs that matter.
- Meanwhile, confusion being added via wet-weather warnings of price increases…
- …in a year of unprecedented global ‘heatwaves’.
