Waitrose cuts cost of roast dinner in pricing battle with Ocado
In This Article:
Waitrose has cut the price of roast dinner staples and other items in the grocer’s latest bid to retain cash-strapped customers.
The supermarket chain said it was lowering the cost of 250 items from Wednesday as part of an ongoing £100m investment.
Among the goods falling in price are higher-welfare, medium whole chickens, which will drop from £4.90 each to £4.50 each.
It follows a similar announcement from rival Ocado, which last week said it was cutting the price of kale, avocados and organic vegetables as it battles to retain its middle-class customer base.
A 500g bag of “essential” Waitrose penne pasta will also fall from 95p to 75p, a pack of eight “essential” pork sausages will fall from £2 to £1.80 and a two-kilogram bag of Maris Piper potatoes will fall from £2.10 to £1.65.
Some other products dropping in price are yorkshire puddings, loose cauliflower, apples, steak pie, quiches, porridge oats and cream and chicken soup.
It comes as Waitrose, which is part of the John Lewis Partnership, is under pressure to cut costs internally as well.
This week, partnership boss Dame Sharon White will be under pressure to show a group-wide turnaround is taking shape as presents half-year results.
In March, Dame Sharon revealed plans to strip £600m of costs out of the partnership on top of £300m that had already been cut.
The turnaround plan followed a loss of £230m last year after the business was battered by inflation and the cost of living crisis.
Sales and profits have dropped at Waitrose, which also saw its market share fall from 4.6pc to 4.4pc last year, according to Kantar.
Charlotte Di Cello, Commercial Director for Waitrose, said: “Giving our customers good value for money is a priority and we continue to work hard to keep our prices low, whilst maintaining our quality and supporting our fantastic farmers.
“As well as lowering the prices of hundreds of products, we’re also passing on additional savings to our customers when the prices we pay fall due to food inflation dropping.
“We’ve already lowered the prices of dairy products, household goods like toilet paper, and canned vegetables as a result of inflation falling on those items.”