- New Consumer Council survey finds Tesco products to be the cheapest.
- Six of the 17 branded products were cheapest in the Alliance store.
- Which store do you believe offers best overall value for money? Take part in our poll below.
THE new Alliance store selling Tesco products has come out cheapest in a price comparison conducted by Jersey’s Consumer Council.
Six of the 17 branded products that were surveyed were cheapest in the Alliance store, which spans between York Street and Sand Street and was opened last November.
Waitrose came in just behind Alliance, having three of the cheapest items from the list and none of the most expensive.
Iceland had two of the cheapest products, and three products at their highest price.
Both M&S and the Co-op sold no items at their cheapest price, with M&S having three of the most expensive and the Co-op having four.
The Consumer Council’s Pricewatch survey, which has not been carried out for a number of years, collected data on 6 March from all five of the Island’s supermarkets.
Alliance had the cheapest price for Weetabix, Lurpak, Horlicks, PG Tips, Hellman’s mayonnaise and Ribena cordial.
But the Co-op have hit back at the report, saying that the Pricewatch campaign represents a small cross-section of products and does not accurately reflect price competitiveness across the stores.
Jim Plumley, chief commercial officer at the Co-op, said: ‘We carry out regular in-depth surveys which measure the price competitiveness of a large range of essential and non-essential grocery items.
‘As a result, we regularly adjust retail prices to remain competitive. It is our belief that we provide overall better value to our customers.
‘The price survey carried out by the Jersey Consumer Council represents a very small cross section of products and therefore does not accurately reflect price competitiveness across the selected stores.’
* Yellow = cheapest price; green = highest price
SandpiperCI, which operates Iceland and M&S, said that it was disappointed that the survey did not mention that Iceland-branded products have always been sold at UK prices and that ‘shoppers themselves are the best price watchers’.
The 17 items that were surveyed included a number of branded grocery items like tea bags, cereal, butter, mayonnaise and coffee.
Advocate Rose Colley, the chairman of the Jersey Consumer Council, said that their research indicated that consumers needed to shop around to get the best prices.
‘We were interested to see whether the arrival of Tesco Alliance would help on affordable groceries,’ she added.
Alliance managing director Andrew Bagot, said: ‘We have put a huge amount of work into getting our prices right since we opened our first store, and we are delighted that the Jersey Consumer Council has recognised that in its independent survey.
‘Our whole aim in challenging the established operators and offering some new competition in the market was to put money back into Islanders’ pockets, and that is exactly what we are doing.
‘The long-term partnership deal that we have struck with Tesco enables us to offer not just low-cost staples – things like Weetabix, PG Tips and Hellman’s Mayonnaise, where our prices are the lowest in the Island – but also premium products from the Tesco Finest range, and the feedback that we have been getting anecdotally and also reflected in our sales figures is that those products are hitting the spot with Jersey consumers.’
Meanwhile, a SandpiperCI spokesman said: ‘Retail food prices change from supermarket to supermarket, day to day which makes it difficult for accurate price comparisons to be made.
‘In our experience shoppers themselves are the best price watchers and know which stores are selling the best value Produce, Meat and Frozen products none of which are mentioned.’
When the new Alliance store, selling Tesco-branded products, opened its doors for the first time back in November, Islanders welcomed the new store, but told the JEP that they found some items were more expensive than they had anticipated.
The shop, on the site of the former Horseplay shop spanning York Street and Sand Street, was officially opened by St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft and Andrew Bagot, the managing director of Alliance, on Wednesday 26 November.
Alliance invested a total of £2.2 million into the project, which created 25 new jobs in the Island.
Speaking at the time the store opened, Ann King, executive officer of the Jersey Consumer Council, said that the new store would enable Islanders to have more choice and encourage competitive pricing in Jersey.
‘In light of the recent Jersey Annual Social Survey where people reported not always being able to afford to have hot meals, we hope the arrival of Tesco Alliance will assist people in order to being able to eat.
‘It will provide Islanders with a wider range of choice and priced goods.’
Here’s what shoppers said at the time:
Sheila de Ste Croix: ‘I was just having a look and some of the luxury items seem to be cheaper than other supermarkets. I think it’s great. They have some lovely prepacked food. Overall it’s nice to have another choice. I won’t buy too much, but people who live in town will find it useful.’
Margaret Le Sueur: ‘There are some things that are cheaper, but the prices are definitely different from England. They should have been a bit cheaper to start off with and then gradually increased them.’
John Ainsworth: ‘The prices aren’t much different from other supermarkets, but the staff are very helpful. The local products aren’t much cheaper than the Co-op, but their own brands are definitely cheaper. It’s better value, which is competition for the other shops.’
Brenda Wilton-Davies: ‘I was disappointed. Some of the products were a bit cheaper, but the local products were the same price. I feel sorry for the general store nearby, which might be affected by it.’
IT was not so many years ago that the idea of Tesco carrier bags in King Street would have caused hands to be thrown up in horror.
It’s fair to say that at the time, Tesco’s presence in the UK was stronger, with complaints from smaller retailers that the supermarket giant was covering swathes of the British landscape with its superstores, to the detriment of independent shops and traditional town centres.
Since then the supermarket landscape has changed sufficiently to enable an enterprising Guernsey company to sell Tesco-branded goods in St Helier, with further plans for a £30 million superstore on the derelict Ann Street site. But despite the subdued response to this week’s launch from the public and business community – possibly because Guernsey has already had these goods on sale for over a year – the question remains as to whether Tesco is the right brand to add to the Island’s supermarket mix.
In the UK, it is competition from the bulk discounters like Aldi and Lidl that are pushing down prices – and these brands seem to appeal just as well to the more affluent shopper as to those seeking a bargain of necessity. Of course Jersey retailers have argued for years that freight costs, higher wage expectations and lack of opportunity for economies of scale, coupled with GST, mean that Islanders can never expect to have access to the kind of aggressive cost-cutting that takes place in the UK. But as newly appointed Assistant Chief Minister Philip Ozouf said earlier this week, there are products and sectors in which prices levied locally are inexplicably high – despite the fact that the Competition Law has been in place for ten years.
For many years, he has championed greater price transparency in the retail sector. His ministerial remit now includes competition, so he may finally get his way.
But will the launch of yet another mid-range supermarket onto an already overcrowded supermarket trolley give the average Jersey shopper a fairer share of the bargains? Unfortunately, the answer to that is probably not. It seems that, yet again, more competition does not always mean more competitive prices.
That is not the only concern, however. Can Jersey support even more bigstore retailers? Or will one of them go the way of ferry company Emeraude, to the ultimate detriment of the consumer?
IN May 2014, when it was announced that Alliance would be bringing Tesco-branded products to Jersey, the chief executive of the Channel Islands Co-op, Colin Macleod, said that there wasn’t enough margin in food prices for the new arrival to ‘spark a price war’.
Speaking at the time, he said that the Co-op was already competing successfully against the Alliance group in Guernsey, where Tesco-branded products were already being sold.
‘We will be rolling our sleeves up and getting ready to compete with Alliance when they come to Jersey, as we have done for many years in Guernsey,’ he said at the time, adding: ‘My fear is that there will be quite a bit of capacity in the market and we are already reaching the stage where there is enough competition and space.’
Asked if he thought the new entrant would spark a price war, he said: ‘I don’t think there is enough net margin in food retail for that to happen.’
