Food prices: Tesco cuts cost of pasta and cooking oil - a week after grocers slash bread and butter prices

Shoppers at some of the UK's biggest supermarket chains will soon be in for a pleasant surprise at the checkout, as Tesco announces another round of price cuts on pantry essentials.

The UK's biggest supermarket chain has announced it will drop prices on its own-brand pasta and cooking oil. This will affect around 30 products, with 15p off 500g and 1kg packs of own-brand pasta, 14p off its one litre vegetable oil and 15p off its one litre sunflower oil.

It follows a number of supermarkets dropping the price of some lines of bread and butter last week in response to falling commodity prices. Sainsbury’s and Tesco also recently cut the price of milk by at least 5p, followed by Aldi, Lidl and Asda.

On Wednesday (10 May), Tesco announced it has dropped the cost of its most popular loaf, Tesco Toastie white bread, from 85p to 75p, as well as cutting 10p from the price of its own-brand white, wholemeal medium, and wholemeal thick-cut loaves. The price of Tesco’s own-brand 250g blocks of salted and unsalted butter has fallen from £1.99 to £1.89.

Aldi and Lidl followed suit, with Aldi dropping own-brand loaves from 79p to 75p, and its Cowbelle 250g butter range from £1.99 to £1.89. Lidl's Dairy Manor butter range now costs £1.89, while the price of its Selected Rowan Hill Bakery Bread has been cut to 75p.

This came just one day after Sainsbury's said it was cutting the cost for consumers, due to commodity prices for wheat and butter starting to fall. has lowered the price of its own-brand 250g salted and unsalted butter by 5% to £1.89. It is also cutting the price of its 800g Soft White Medium, Wholemeal Medium, Wholemeal Thick and Toastie White loaves of bread by 11% to 75p.

Tesco group chief product officer Ashwin Prasad said: “As families continue to watch their weekly spend and budget carefully, we’re pleased to be able to pass on price reductions where we can, and to help with everyday essentials like bread and butter.” The grocer said prices could vary in its Express stores.

Rhian Bartlett, food commercial director at Sainsbury’s, said: “We have been battling hard to beat inflation and whenever we are paying less for the products we buy from our suppliers, we will pass those savings on to customers.

“As we see the commodity prices starting to fall for wheat and butter, we’re able to lower our prices on two of the products people buy most often, bread and butter," he continued: "We are committed to offering our customers the best value possible so they can be confident that they are getting a great deal on their everyday essentials when they shop with us.”

The price cuts come after UK Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation peaked at 11.1% late last year and food prices continued to soar. UK food price inflation fell marginally from March to April, leading to hopes the worst of supermarket price rises may have passed.

According to data analytics firm Kantar, the rate of food inflation dipped to 17.3% from 17.5% last month. While it means price hikes have softened slightly, they were still rocketing upwards, as energy and supply chain costs were passed on to shoppers.

Kantar also found that supermarket own-label sales had grown 13.5% against the year, while their cheapest value lines had seen sales soar 46%. Items from such ranges are now appearing in a fifth of all shopping baskets as people seek out cheaper options, the analysts said.

Previous NationalWorld analysis of value range products across the country’s biggest retailers showed stores were putting prices up at a rate well above headline inflation.

Sainsbury’s latest price cuts follow it and Tesco cutting the price of milk by at least 5p, followed by Aldi, Lidl and Asda. Sainsbury’s said its price drop would not have an impact on how much it paid farmers.