Ocado announces price cuts on essentials

The online grocer is dropping the price of four pints of its own-brand milk by 10p to £1.45 and two pints by 5p to £1.20. Apart from milk, Ocado has also unveiled cuts to the prices of more than 100 “everyday essentials” across a range of branded, own-brand and Marks & Spencer items, including Lurpak garlic butter, down 25 per cent, 100g of Ocado grated parmesan, down 16 per cent, and own-brand seeded rolls, down 17 per cent.

More than 60 reductions reflect recent M&S price cuts and include products such as Greek-style yoghurt, salmon fillets, avocados, ciabatta rolls and tortilla wraps.

Ocado Retail chief executive Hannah Gibson said: “Together with the Ocado Price Promise, cutting the prices of these 100 essentials means we’re even better value, alongside the service, range and quality which our customers love.”

It follows Ocado’s Price Promise launched earlier this year, which compares prices against more than 10,000 like-for-like products on Tesco.com.

Ocado’s move comes a day after supermarket senior executives from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons were quizzed by MPs on food price inflation and why prices are still rising when commodity and wholesale costs are dropping.

Data from the BRC-NielsenIQ Shop Price Index this week appears to suggest that retailers are beginning to pass on lower wholesale costs, with food inflation easing for a second month running as supermarkets cut the price of household staples.

Food inflation decelerated to 14.6 per cent in June, a relatively significant drop from May’s 15.4 per cent and below the three-month average of 15.2 per cent.