A Morrisons customer was left in shock after she recently found the supermarket selling Douwe Egberts instant coffee for £9.25.
Twitter user Helen posted a photograph of a supermarket shelf with 190g jars of coffee granules from Douwe Egberts with the eye-watering price tag.
She tweeted: “Morning @Morrisons When people are struggling and you and other supermarkets are busy patting yourselves on the back for finally reducing basic items by a couple of pence, how on earth do you justify a price rise of three quid within a couple of weeks on a jar of coffee? Shameful!”
The same brand and coffee type in other supermarkets is at least £2 cheaper. In Waitrose, Douwe Egberts coffee retails at £7.25. Meanwhile, it is a full £3.25 cheaper in Asda compared to the Morrisons price.
A Morrisons representative reached out to Helen on Twitter and said: “Hi there, I am sorry about this. Please can you DM me your tweet along with the name of the store you visited so I can look into this for you?”
However, other shoppers were in disbelief over the “outrageous” price of the pantry staple, as the cost of grocery shopping has soared over the past year due to sky-high inflation.
Bafta-winning TV writer and author Adam Kay said: “You know those gotcha questions that journalists used to ask out-of-touch politicians? ‘How much is a loaf of bread?’ ‘A pint of milk?’
“These days I have zero confidence I could answer those questions. Nine quid for some coffee granules…”
“Unbelievable! £9 for a jar of coffee? Be cheaper to buy a posh coffee machine,” one person wrote.
Another said: “That Douwe Egberts was £6 not very long ago. How can these supermarkets justify a 50 per cent rise in these products? It is clear profiteering.”
Others advised Helen to shop elsewhere where the price of Douwe Egberts coffee is lower, or to buy it in bulk on Amazon.
In a statement to The Independent, a Morrisons spokesperson said: “This is an unprecedented period of inflation and we are working hard to keep prices down and competitive for our customers while maintaining high standards and availability in all our stores.
“We remain committed to doing all we can to help when it comes to the cost of grocery shopping and this week announced our fourth wave of price cuts this year. Included in the cuts were our own brand Morrisons Gold Coffee (200g) which was £3.29 and is now £2.39 which is in addition to a number of branded coffee promotions also currently live online and in store.”
Food prices soared to record highs earlier this month despite a slight easing in overall shop inflation in April. Ready meals and coffee have been impacted the most due to ongoing cost pressures throughout the supply chain.
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said: “The knock-on effect from increased production and packaging costs meant that ready meals became more expensive and coffee prices were also up due to the high cost of coffee beans, as well as key producer nations exporting less.”
However, she added that shoppers “should start to see food prices come down in the coming months”.
Recently, Morrisons and other supermarkets have been slashing the prices of basic grocery items in a bid to keep customers from looking elsewhere for cheaper deals.
The supermarket has cut prices on hundreds of products for the fourth time this year and extended a price lock on more than 1,000 products.
