Win! Government crackdown on misleading supermarket pricing

I am a marine engineer and every time I come back from one of my terms on board my ship I find that the cost of my weekly shop has gone up. The Supermarkets say the prices have gone down??????????????
Special offers are most of the time a con. The customers are being taken for a ride.

There has been a trend setting in lately with packaging that is also linked to pricing. Its the actual size of the packets relative to the product within. We chased this point with a manufacturer who told us they realised this but the size was the dictate of the supermarket!!!! We followed this up with them, they gave us our money back, took details but could not sat any further action would be taken as its the marketing dept. that controls such things and the complaint is unlikely to reach them!!!

It is often cheaper to buy two packs of a product than the “special offer” of a double pack. This really is a con – less for more money? It should be illegal. If you`re in a rush or herding children you can`t always check weights and volume. Also some things are weighed in lbs and ozs and others in kg and grms, I`d put money on it that this is designed to confuse. It`s sharp practice.

Always check the offers, I have found at least 50% of the time they are either no cheaper or the difference is a couple of pence. Beware of the ‘Special Offer’ followed by a price only – there is often no comparison price. Mind you the furniture shops have been getting away with bogus sale prices for decades! No there are no real genuine sales or bargains these days – we’re all being taken for a ride.

I have got to the point where I so distrust Tesco that, where possible, I now go out of my way to avoid their products. Unfortunately, without a car, they are the most convenient, but when I have ventured elsewhere they all appear tarred with the same brush. I how just HATE shopping!

Why in the last 7 times I have gone to Tesco my weekly shopping there has been no skimmed milk on show, so I have hunted a person down to enquire and they go out the back and come with a full rack! Once or twice I can understand but 7 times in a row is not acceptable.

We have been shopping at tesco Baldock for nearly 30 years & every week things get worse most normal products we usually have are not stocked any more because we’re told there’s not enough call for them now, everything is getting smaller but prices are getting bigger, the cartons of 6 pints milk are so thin you have a job lifting them without them collapsing we have had several leak out into the car by the time we got home, when you try to complain there’s never a manager in the store I though tesco was a food store, stop selling all the junk and sell more food

No more offers just flat, honest prices. Meat particularly is different weights in the different supermarkets to make it not comparable. Ban battery eggs, bring back non homogenized milk, and make it clear how animals have been kept and fed on meat packs. An honest price for honest food that’s not been messed with. Make it clear what fruit and veg and meat is in season so that we can get back to buying seasonal foods. Make it extremely clear on all foods when something has over 1/4 of our daily need of something per portion and what the weight of the portion size is both raw and cooked. I would love to see a supermarket before and after a nutritionist went in and removed all of the foods that we shouldn’t be eating in the majority of our diet!

Not everyone is happy about the Which? super-complaint: http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Business-News/Super-complaint-from-Which-was-a-waste-of-time

The article says we get a fair deal from our grocery retailers. That’s alright then.

Perhaps we should dedicate the image at the top of this page to the guy who wrote the article. 🙂

I would also like to comment on the so called Roll Back Prices, they are either more expensive than the original price or, they are exactly the same as the original price like, “Was £1 rolled back to £1”, this drives me nuts and, every week the cost of my weekly shop changes even though I buy the exact same products every week! all this should be made illegal, and all their stock trolleys shouldn’t be left in the isles its highly dangerous for, disabled people like me! its disgusting, my local Asda always do this, I’m sick of having to get my carer to move them out of my way! its not fair!!!!!!!

If I want to buy, for example tomatoes, I’m faced with:
1)….. A pack of 4 or 6 with a pack price – no weight, nor price per Kg/lb
2)….. When available – lose toms, priced by weight = Kg/lb

1)… Is, of course convenient – BUT much overpriced – IFF (sic) one checks !
Unfair / sharp practice !

Stop the practice of advertising the saving represented by a price reduction on the supermarkets’ shelf edge labels and tickets.. This illustration is often very misleading because amount saved is in larger print than the actual price of the product that has been reduced thus conning customers in to believing that they are getting a bargain

I do not really trust supermarkets on pricing. especially when one of the “Big” supermarkets prices soup on offer at 65p a can and then boost of a multi pack deal of 4 cans for £3.10p. work it out.

I live on my own and find the way that supermarkets price and package vegetables irritating: I could buy a 1kg bag of new potatoes for £1 and throw half of them away as they’ve sprouted / gone soft before I’ve used them or pay £3 per kilo for the loose new potatoes. The majority of offers are based on buying more of a product, which is not much use to those of us who live alone.