Top stores’ price tactics could lead to prosecution

Four of the UK’s biggest supermarkets could face prosecution over misleading pricing practices, a consumer law expert has warned.

In a report on supermarket price wars for BBC1’s Panorama, Deborah Parry said many of the pricing tactics used by Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons could potentially be illegal.

It comes at the end of a year in which the big four have opened more than 200 new stores. They control 68 per cent of the UK grocery market, with £65 billion of the £96bn spent in the past year going through their tills.

In the programme, a reporter looked at the big four supermarkets near her home and found mistakes and misleading claims in all of them.

She found 17 items presented as bigger pack, better value which were in fact worse value. Five were in Tesco, five in Sainsbury’s, four in Asda and three in Morrisons.

The supermarkets said they displayed unit prices so shoppers could compare, but admitted when smaller packs were on promotion they might sometimes be cheaper.

A survey of 1,546 shoppers revealed 42 per cent of shoppers did not trust supermarket offers and discounts. 31 per cent said they were less likely to trust them now than in the past and 47 per cent said they had felt misled by offers.