The UK government has announced that ten of the country’s largest supermarkets have signed up to a pricing initiative that will see unit pricing added to labels.
Earlier this year, consumer minister Jo Swinson called on supermarkets to improve the way they display unit prices, which she argued should be shown in addition to the actual selling price.
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Commenting yesterday (4 December) while on a visit to a Sainsbury’s store in London, Swinson said all ten supermarkets – Aldi, Asda, The Co-operative Group, Iceland Foods, Lidl, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose – had improved the visibility of shelf labels, with changes such as increased font size.
Swinson said: “It can be hard for households to work out the best deal when food is sometimes priced individually – like a mince pie – or soups and sauces, which can be priced by both the gram and millilitre.
“It is great that they have committed to greater consistency and clearer labels. We will now look at the current legislation to see if it’s preventing supermarkets from making further improvements.”
However, four of the supermarkets – Tesco, M&S, Asda and Sainsbury’s – have come under fire from consumer groups because they are still not displaying the unit price of products on multi-buy promotions.
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By GlobalDataWhich? executive director Richard Lloyd said: “We now need the remaining supermarkets to commit to making special offer deals simpler to understand. With rising food prices one of consumers’ top worries, it’s only right that supermarkets play fair and help consumers find the best deal.”
