Supermarket chains' lowest-priced budget range items are almost never available in smaller convenience stores, a new study has found.
Consumer group Which? sent mystery shoppers to try to buy supermarket own-brand lowest-priced essentials. The study found that, on a shopping list of 30 items, they were available 87% of the time in large supermarket.
But at Tesco Express, Sainsbury's Local and Morrison's Daily they were available less than 1% of the time.
Which? visited 35 small stores with the list and found 30 had no items at all. The other five had one item each.
Anna Taylor, executive director of the Food Foundation lobby group, told The Guardian: “Low-income families simply can’t afford to travel to the larger supermarkets and are forced by their environments into using smaller stores.”
Morrisons said it had cut prices and broadened its Savers range.
A spokesperson for Tesco said: “Our Express stores do not have the shelf space to accommodate all the product ranges available in our larger stores, so we use our expert knowledge of local customers’ shopping habits to make sure the ranges in each store best meet local tastes and needs. We are disappointed to see this highly flawed study from Which? that does not accurately reflect the role of convenience stores and does not provide any helpful information for customers who are shopping on a budget.”
Sainsbury’s did not provide a comment when approached by The Guardian.
