Last updated at 12:17, Saturday, 08 August 2009

A campaign by supermarket giant Asda to cut prices of groceries has seen several products increase in price, according to trade magazine The Grocer.

Asda are currently running a Roll Back scheme, which has seen 969 products have their prices rounded to £1.

However, a survey carried out by the trade magazine found that of these products, 173 – almost one fifth – actually had their prices rounded up, and cost more now than they did in March, before the Roll Back began.

One third of the products cost the same now as they did before the campaign began and 477 of them – around half – were cheaper in July than they were in March.

Some of the biggest price rises include Asda’s own-brand chocolate spread, increasing in price from 74p to £1; a litre of Lucozade increasing from 77p to £1, and Pedigree dog treats rising from 67p to £1.

According to The Grocer: “Asda’s heavily publicised round pound lines have become a key part of its promotional offer – but almost one in five of these lines sold for less than a quid just months ago.”

Promotional consultant Kay Staniland told the magazine: “Asda does have some huge savings.

“But it does often introduce small, hard-to-notice price rises of a few pence to offset some of the cost of these deals.

“Consumers see products at £1 as a bargain and perhaps don’t always think too hard about the starting price.

“But Asda has made a big deal of going head to head with stores like Poundland, so raising some prices to exactly £1 could backfire.”

Last month Asda chief merchandising officer Darren Blackhurst told The Grocer that round-pound pricing worked because consumers believed that prices were reduced to £1, not increased.

“We aren’t rounding prices of products up to £1, we are rounding them down,” he said.

A spokesman for Asda told The Grocer that many of the increases to £1 were expired Rollbacks or products that had been cut to half price, returning to their original £1.

The spokesman said: “Week in, week out we have got 7,000 products across the store for £1 or less.

“While the products may change, that promise to customers doesn’t and it is our unbeatable value that is seeing more people than ever shopping at Asda.”

First published at 05:14, Friday, 07 August 2009
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk