What's up with Tesco prices?

[TheVampiresWife]

Just come back from my local one. Quite substantial price hikes on loads of stuff since I was in on Sunday. Examples:

Quorn lasagne was £3 on Sunday, £3.50 today
Green beans, 69p/£1.40
Can Diet Coke, 59p/89p
Cauliflower cheese, £1.25/£1.60
Veggie sausages, £2/£2.75

...and on and on. Loads of stuff, and not stuff that was previously on offer either. A few pence, fair enough, I probably wouldn't even notice, but my shopping was over a fiver more than usual for the same stuff I buy every week. I don't think I've ever seen such steep sudden price hikes.

Lots of empty shelves too - don't know if the two are connected. Perhaps because distribution staff are isolating?

Anyone else's Tesco the same? Is it the same in other supermarkets?

I noticed prices had taken a jump in Asda at the weekend, and they had covered up empty shelve areas in some aisle with advertising panels (ironically asking for donations to the food bank).

I want to know what is wrong with Tesco in general at the moment

We have home delivery,
This whole pandemic has been fine but the last month, lots of subs
And in the last 4 weeks, no Tesco Jelly dog food and no water ….
Bit baffled…

Is it Staff sickness/ Isolation?
Is it just my local one or anyone else been effected?

In our local Express it seems to be down to the club card scheme. Basically they've pushed the prices up so it seems like you're paying less when you use your club card to get the "clubcard price" hmm.

Shopping in tesco has actually become a bit of a luxury for me in the past year. I only buy our veggie products there now and everything else in aldi, although I'm finding my spends increasing there too!

Right let's get down to the important stuff.

Costco's vanilla ice cream in a cup from the food hatch has shot up in price to £1.80

Definitely supply chain issues. Our local small Co-op looks like it’s been ransacked also. Some shortages are due to hot weather like I’ve cream etc but hardly any fruit and veg and other isles have big gaps.

Were the Green Beans fresh or frozen OP? I haven't been able to get frozen green beans for weeks.

misses point of thread entirely

Not surprised at a lack of lorry drivers. Costs thousands to pass a class one test to earn £10/11 per hour and get spoken to like dirt. The gov need to really look at this industry as it is so vital.

Ah, so it's not just me then!

This was a Tesco Metro, but it's the same one I usually go to and where I went on Sunday when the prices were lower. Haven't been to my Extra store so I don't know how the prices there stack up.

I have a Clubcard (I use the vouchers for Pizza Express freebies a couple of times a year) and also noticed today that there's a lot less of the Clubcard Prices offers, too - there were loads the last time I went. The stuff that was on offer is stupid money now - those Fibre One bars for example were £1.25 CC price but they're £2.95 now!

I do my main shop at Aldi and haven't noticed any increase there thankfully (though I haven't been since last Thursday). M&S was fine today too, and Waitrose. I really hope this isn't the shape of things to come!

@BLACKTUESDAY1

Not surprised at a lack of lorry drivers. Costs thousands to pass a class one test to earn £10/11 per hour and get spoken to like dirt. The gov need to really look at this industry as it is so vital.

Yup after all of the key worker/how important lorry drivers are talk last March that’s all gone again now!

But it’s ok because Grant Shapp has given them permission to drive for even more hours to plug the gap so sod all the safety issues that come with more hours let’s just stick a plaster over the much bigger issue.

@BunnyRuddington

Were the Green Beans fresh or frozen OP? I haven't been able to get frozen green beans for weeks.

misses point of thread entirely

Fresh. I've been having similar issues with kalamata olives thought. Where are all the kalamata olives?!

I've got a clubcard but the 'clubcard price' thing has pissed me off to the point I won't go back to Tesco. I was never a huge fan anyway but it's so cynical it makes me angry.

An OL friend said that her local small Tesco Metro had been rebranded as a Tesco Express over last weekend, and all the prices had gone up. Nothing else had changed at all, but prices in Tesco Express stores are higher!

The big Tesco near us is the same: distinctly higher prices, lots of missing things on the shelves.

All a bit worrying as we head into summer; a high number of pupil premium children in our school, so I know their families will struggle.

My local big tesco also has bare shelves in lots of areas but no shortage of the lorry drivers...thats a total myth...truth is companies are offering £11 per hour...it used to be around 30 to 40 years ago....you can earn more as a cleaner !!

Lots of reasons....

COVID-19; Brexit (one of the many reasons the result bewildered me was it seemed no one had ever actually looked at where our fresh food came from); shortage of lorry drivers and crop pickers (many were from Europe and have decided to go home rather than face racism and the complete basket case England has become recently); plus the spring this year was awful. Oh, and school holidays and everyone on staycation this year. Plus the amazingly succesful track and trace pingy lottery that tells people to self isolate due to contact when they may not even have left the house. We use a couple of local box schemes and even there shortages of things like salad, tomatoes and potatoes are apparent. Plus due to aforesaid lousy soring we've not managed to grow as much of our own this year. Reminds me a lot of growing up in the 1970s and early 80s at the minute....

Exactly Sirzy. Loads of overtired lorry drivers on the road...great idea!

Need it I reckon. The supermarkets apparently were exempt from some of the supply chain paperwork but that ends soon. I watched a programme panorama or horizon I think and they were explaining that there might be supply issues in September. Maybe this is what's happening.

Or it could be all the barbecues.

*brexit.

@Missingthesea

An OL friend said that her local small Tesco Metro had been rebranded as a Tesco Express over last weekend, and all the prices had gone up. Nothing else had changed at all, but prices in Tesco Express stores are higher!

Oh.

OH.

I've just checked the Tesco website and my Metro is, indeed, now listed as an Express. On Sunday it was definitely a Metro (I've just been looking at my receipt).

I'm surprisingly pissed off about this. I know the primary aim of any business is to make money but this seems really underhand somehow - there's now obvious signage (still says Metro outside) and you'd think, given they can track everything you buy and everywhere you buy it through your Clubcard, they'd email customers who use these stores to let them know (they're certainly quick enough to email me about offers at my local Extra). Also a lot of lower income families and students rely on this branch - it's not a tiny one like the Express stores usually are, lots of people do medium-sized shops there. But I certainly won't be from now on!

Dickheads.

Shortage of drivers is definately not a myth. All the hauliers I know are struggling to fill positions. To the point directors are now out all hours trying to fill the gaps. It’s across the board too to recycling and waste collections. There’s also a hold up at the docks having to clear stuff through customs. It was inevitable prices were gonna rise. Drivers want paying more but those costs need to be passed on. It’s even hard to find agency staff too at the mo. My family own a haulage firm and it’s been a real struggle. People are still expecting stuff to magically appear on shelves, forgetting that it’s gotta get there somehow.

I have noticed this too - massive price hikes in many basic products the last week or so, and no Club Card option.

The empty shelves / unavailable products thing has been going on for months now.

I’m glad it’s not me whose shopping has gradually been going up and up. Sometimes I look at how little gets delivered and think, how on earth was all that £60?!

They’ve also been horrendous for deliveries recently with all of ours for the past 2 months being either late or not showing up at all. I sent an email asking whether there was a reason for this and was given a non committal response about staff isolating.

I haven’t been in for a few weeks but totally agree about the club card prices, such a rip off!

Prices have gone, not noticed much difference in stock except for random things that I only buy occasionally