Food inflation: supermarkets still raising value range prices

More than two out of five value range products have got more expensive over the past two months - we reveal the worst hit products.

UK supermarkets are continuing to raise prices on their cheapest food and drink products, with almost 300 price hikes imposed on value range items in the past two months, NationalWorld can reveal.

It comes as supermarkets seek to beat back accusations they have taken advantage of the cost of living crisis to increase prices more than necessary and protect profits – a trend dubbed ‘greedflation’. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says it has seen no evidence of it at this stage, but is "stepping up" its monitoring of the grocery sector to "understand whether any failure in competition is contributing to prices being higher than they would be in a well-functioning market".

In April we revealed the results of our supermarket value range price tracker one year on, with prices rising by an average of 23% across 586 budget products at Asda, Aldi, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsburys. Almost nine in 10 products got more expensive over the year, and while the figures cannot be directly compared to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, the results do suggest that the lowest income shoppers may be seeing even sharper price increases than official food inflation data would indicate. Food inflation was running at 16.3% in the year to April, according to the ONS.

Since then, supermarkets have continued to raise prices at pace. Between the first Mondays of April and June, our tracker saw 271 price rises out of a basket of 619 products (44%), with hikes of up to 64% in one case – a packet of Just Essentials pork chops at Asda, which rose from £2.65 to the equivalent of £4.34, once a change in size is taken into account.

There were also sharp price increases on salad cream and other condiments, frozen chips, and tinned tomatoes and spaghetti hoops.

You can find the full results for each supermarket, including a list of the biggest price rises, below. We have also been tracking the price of mid-tier own-brand products and have created a handy tool to let you look up products – for instance baked beans – to see how price rises have compared at each supermarket.

We took online price snapshots on the first Monday of the month beginning on 4 April 2022, with the latest data collected on 5 June 2023. Value range products from Aldi, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco were included.

At Aldi, Morrisons and Asda these products are part of a single value range line – Everyday Essentials, Savers, and Just Essentials, respectively. Both Tesco and Sainsbury's ditched their standalone basics ranges in recent years, replacing them with a group of so-called ‘tertiary’ brands. These include own-brand labels such as Creamfields, Stockwell and Co and Hearty Food Co at Tesco, and Allcroft's, J. James and Family and Hubbard's Foodstore at Sainsbury's, among others.

Below we have listed the biggest price rises seen between April and June at each supermarket.

At Aldi there were 21 price rises across 50 Everyday Essentials products (42%), and two price cuts. The average rise across the products that got more expensive was 11%. The Aldi products with the biggest price rises were:

Asda increased the prices of 104 out of 159 products (65%) that we were able to track between April and June, alongside 10 price cuts. The average rise across the products that got more expensive was 16%. The Asda products with the biggest price rises were:

At Morrisons there were 25 price rises across 84 Savers products (30%), and two price cuts. The average rise across the products that got more expensive was 12%. The Morrisons products with the biggest price rises were:

Tesco increased the prices of 76 out of 198 products (38%) that we were able to track between April and June, alongside 11 price cuts. The average rise across the products that got more expensive was 12%. The Tesco products with the biggest price rises were:

At Sainsburys there were 45 price rises across 128 value products (35%), and three price cuts. The average rise across the products that got more expensive was 13%. The Sainsburys products with the biggest price rises were: