Will Sainsbury's-Asda have to sell 73 stores or 245? The CMA's view on that is of vital importance in Brexit Britain

Food prices are set to rise thanks to Brexit – and the watchdog must be wary that a decline in competition among supermarkets will only make things worse

Overlapping Sainsbury's and Asda stores (Reuters)

Asbury’s – sorry, the proposed combination of Sainsbury’s and Asda – could have to sell 73 shops if the deal gets the go ahead. So says the BBC, citing research by an outfit called Maximise UK, which is a consultant that specialises in retail location.

On the other hand it could be as many as 245, as The Independent has reported. Or it might be more like a handful. The only thing we can say for certain right now is that we are going to see a lot of opinion like this flying around over the coming months. Especially on quiet news days.

It will be 12 or more of those months before we get to hear the only opinion that counts, which is that of the Competition & Markets Authority. It will undertake an exhaustive investigation before getting there.

Lots of clever people will write lots of detailed papers during its active phase. Asbury’s will have a small army of them ready to argue that there won’t be a problem because Aldi and Lidl and… Amazon, which frightens the bejesus out of the lot of us.

The other big supermarkets (probably including the first two and perhaps Amazon too) will say the exact opposite: Just say no! Or come up with a number of forced store sales sufficiently big to make it a real struggle for Asbury’s people to get the numbers to add up.

This will be entirely motivated by their own self interest, but it could also, for once, be said to be in our interests as consumers.

The regulator will, of course, have its own people coming up with their own conclusions, looking at each of the hundreds of communities in which the two firms have overlapping stores, the overall state of the market, and more besides. According to the report there is more crossover between the two in the North West and South East of England than anywhere else.

While all this is going on an entire industry will more or less be in a strategic holding pattern, unless Amazon decides to spring a jack in the box by, say, bidding for Morrisons, although that will cost it a pretty penny given the way the latter’s shares have performed of late.

But amid the background noise created by the proposed merger, it’s pretty competitive out there, and none of the big players can afford to take a foot off the gas. That’s a thoroughly good thing in a country in which real incomes were, until very recently, falling. With Brexit almost certain to raise food prices, there is a pressing need for it to stay that way.

It is therefore to be hoped that the CMA’s view, when finally expressed, will be left sufficiently jaundiced by what its people find.

Regardless of all the activity in the market, and the debate over overlapping stores and how they should be considered, it does seems unlikely that the creation of a second Tesco controlling about 30 per cent of it will serve to enhance that all important competition, despite what Asbury’s bosses have been saying of late.