Tesco announces further price cuts on pasta and cooking oil

It follows a number of supermarkets dropping the price of some lines of bread and butter last week in response to falling commodity prices.

A shopper walking through the aisle of a Tesco supermarket (Yui Mok/PA) (PA Wire)

Tesco has announced another round of price cuts on its own-brand pasta and cooking oil as it sees deflation making its way through to cupboard essentials.

The UK’s biggest supermarket is dropping the price of 30 products, with 15p off 500g and 1kg packs of own-brand pasta, 14p off its one litre vegetable oil and 15p off its one litre sunflower oil.

It follows a number of supermarkets dropping the price of some lines of bread and butter last week in response to falling commodity prices.

We hope that by reducing prices on these 30 products which are bought week-in, week-out, we can help customers spend less

Ashwin Prasad, Tesco

Sainsbury’s and Tesco also recently cut the price of milk by at least 5p, followed by Aldi, Lidl and Asda.

The cuts come as grocery inflation leapt by more than 19% in March compared with a year ago, as energy and supply chain costs were passed on to shoppers.

Tesco announced its latest price cuts as Downing Street hosted a “Farm to Fork Summit”, bringing together farmers’ representatives and food and retail trade bodies along with supermarket chiefs to talk about the Government’s goal of boosting co-operation across the supply chain and the sector’s resilience – and tackling rampant food inflation.

We hope that by reducing prices on these 30 products which are bought week-in, week-out, we can help customers spend less

Ashwin Prasad, Tesco

Tesco group chief product officer Ashwin Prasad said: “As we see deflation coming through on key cupboard essentials such as pasta and cooking oil, we’re pleased to pass on these savings to customers.

“We hope that by reducing prices on these 30 products which are bought week-in, week-out, we can help customers spend less.”

Aldi later said it was also cutting the price of some of its pasta and cooking oil, to £1.85 for a litre of vegetable oil and £2.25 for a litre of sunflower oil.

The discounter’s 500g packs of Everyday Essentials spaghetti and penne pasta were dropping to 28p and 41p respectively, while other 500g packs of penne, spaghetti and macaroni were falling from 79p to 75p.