'Most expensive' supermarket hikes price of budget basic bringing cost of essentials to new high

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A supermarket under fire for increasing prices in its cheapest range has hiked the price of another budget basic. Last week Asda was criticised for increasing the price of coffee in its Just Essentials range, from 83p for 100g to 99p.

Now, this week, it has put the price of its Just Essentials loaf up too, from 39p to 45p, bringing the price of a basket of basic groceries to an all-time high in our weekly comparison, at £12.83.

Since March last year we have been monitoring prices of the same eight essentials at the main six supermarkets - comparing the cost of tea bags, coffee, a two-pint bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, a pack of chicken breasts, a pack of mince, beans and butter. Read more: Join the FREE Manchester Evening News WhatsApp community When we first started the comparison, the bill was less than £10 in every store and Asda was the third cheapest retailer behind Aldi and Lidl.

Yet since the end of January, with the exception of one week, the supermarket has ranked most expensive, with shoppers saying it's unfair to keep increasing the cheapest products when it's all they can afford. "When you are buying the cheapest of everything, there's nowhere else to go from there," one Asda shopper told us.