Talking Tesco: UK Competition Commission

Why are we publishing these comments?

Tesco has been reading with interest the third party comments on the Groceries Market Investigation that the Competition Commission has been publishing on its website. Our formal submissions have addressed many of the issues raised by these comments, particularly those of some of the professional lobbying organisations. However, a number of submissions on the Competition Commission’s website contain more specific comments about Tesco which we have not covered in our formal submissions.

Some of these specific comments are inaccurate and misleading, and we are providing a series of short notes in order to put the record straight. In the interests of transparency we are today publishing the first such series of notes.

Food Poverty Project

The Food Poverty Project has suggested that prices in our One Stop stores are significantly higher than those in our Express stores.

Since Tesco acquired One Stop prices have reduced significantly. By the end of this year we will have invested £4.5 million as part of our ongoing programme "Getting Cheaper for Customers." We now closely monitor prices on 500 products to ensure they represent good value.

Prices in One Stop stores are different to prices in Express stores because the One Stop operating model is different to the Express operating model. One Stop stores are generally smaller with lower sales densities, but have a similar fixed cost base; hence the pricing structures are different.