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Manchester Evening News

Entertainment

Emma Gill

'My Asda Just Essentials big shop shows just how much the budget range has gone up'

Asda Just Essentials Aldi Manchester Family Which

With food prices sky high, it's no surprise that shoppers have been turning to cheaper products.

As households continue to struggle with rising bills, many are looking for alternatives to help keep the costs down.

But while big brands like Heinz have been in the spotlight for their price hikes, you may be surprised to hear that supermarkets' own brands and budget ranges have gone up more than premium and branded foods during the cost of living crisis.

According to recent research from Which?, the first wave of data from its supermarket food and drink inflation tracker showed price hikes of up to 175% on everyday budget and own-brand products, compared with 88% for big brands.

One range that has soared in popularity is Asda's Just Essentials, a rebrand of its former Smart Price.

Supermarkets' own brand and budget ranges have gone up more than premium and branded foods have during the cost of living crisis (Manchester Family/MEN)

So much so that the retailer was forced to ration its products, preventing customers buying more than three of any one item.

Inevitably its prices have increased too and to see exactly how much they've gone up, I decided to repeat a big shop of mostly yellow label products from six months ago.

In September 2022, the full shop came to £50.87 and, impressively, was enough to feed my family of four for a week.

Now that same shop costs £64.02, an increase of 26%. Of the 57 Just Essentials products I bought from Asda's Trafford Park store, 35 have gone up in price, 14 of them by 25% or more.

Six items are up by at least 45%, with one of them - a 400g tin of chicken soup up by a staggering 87.5%, from 24p to 45p.

Pears have seen the second highest price hike, up from 45p to 70p, an increase of 56%, and tomato soup is up 50% too, from 30p to 45p.

The cost of a whole chicken is up 45% compared with six months ago (Manchester Family/MEN)

Meat has taken a hit, with an eight-pack of pork sausages up by 46% from 96p to £1.40 and a whole chicken up 45%, from £3.19 to £4.62.

It's price rises within the Just Essentials range that are partly responsible for Asda's unfortunate position as 'most expensive supermarket' in our weekly comparison of all the main supermarkets.

In our price check of the same eight items, which we've been doing since last March, Asda has now been the most expensive since the end of January.

Last week shoppers criticised the supermarket for increasing the price of its Just Essentials 40-pack tea bags from 31p to 35p, saying they're already buying the cheapest of everything available and it's unfair to target those most in need.

We repeated our Asda Just Essentials shop to see how much prices have risen over the last six months (Manchester Family/MEN)

One shopper told us: "If I had any money to spare then I wouldn't be buying the cheapest of everything there is. I buy Asda's Just Essentials range because it's cheap and it's all I can afford.

"I don't know how they expect us to keep paying more for things. It's the most basic stuff, not a luxury."

Another said: "We have cut back so much, over the last few months especially. There really is nothing else we can cut back on. It isn't fair to introduce a new budget range and then increase the prices when it's all people can afford."

Despite the complaints, few places are offering so many products at such low prices and 22 of the items on my shopping list have stayed the same price since I first bought them in September.

Tinned peas have stayed the same price, but chicken soup is up a whopping 87.5% (Manchester Family/MEN)

Even when some of the rises have been taken into account, they're still some of the cheapest available right now. A 500g pack of pasta shapes for instance, up from 35p to 41p, is the same price as Aldi and Lidl. Same with the 500g pack of spaghetti, at 28p.

And while that aforementioned chicken soup hike might seem extreme, at 87.5%, you'll struggle to find anywhere selling it cheaper than 45p a tin.

Perhaps prices were set unrealistically low when the range first launched to lure shoppers in - and given its popularity, it clearly worked. But when you can still fill a trolley full of items to feed a family for less than £65 a week, there's little reason to complain.

You can see from the shelves how popular the range is (Manchester Family/MEN)

An Asda spokesperson: "We launched the Just Essentials By Asda range last year to provide customers with the option of getting all of their weekly essentials from the same low-cost brand range in all of our stores nationwide. We’re working hard to keep prices in check for customers despite global inflationary pressures and we remain the lowest-priced major supermarket – a position recognised by Which? in their regular monthly basket comparison which has named Asda as the cheapest supermarket for a big shop every month for the last three years.

"Last week we announced we would be freezing the prices of over 500 popular branded and own label products, more than half of which are fresh meat, dairy, fruit and vegetable products until the end of May."

Have you tried the Just Essentials range? Or do you buy a budget range from another supermarket? Have you noticed prices of the cheapest products increasing? Let us know in the comments here.