Morrisons slashes prices on 490 products

Undated handout photo issued by Morrisons of some of their own products. Morrisons is cutting prices across a range of its own-brand products as it joins a string of supermarkets battling to retain customers while living costs soar. Issue date: Monday February 20, 2023. PA Photo. The supermarket, which was recently pushed out of the "big four" UK grocers by discounter Aldi, said it has invested £25 million into the price cuts. Some 64 cupboard essentials, breakfast items and fresh products will be reduced by an average of almost a fifth, Morrisons said. See PA story CONSUMER Morrisons. Photo credit should read: Morrisons/PA Wire NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. - Morrisons/PA

Morrisons is cutting its prices for the third time in three months as it steps up efforts to lure shoppers back from Aldi.

The supermarket said it was slashing prices on another 490 products, including fresh meat, baby essentials and freezer items. The latest round of reductions follows rounds of price cuts last month and in January.

Morrisons said it would also extend a price lock on more than 1,000 products. At the start of January, the supermarket pledged to hold prices unchanged up until the end of March. It is now extending that pledge for at least another eight weeks.

The private equity-owned grocer is cutting and freezing prices in an attempt to claw back customers from Aldi, which last year overtook Morrisons to become Britain’s fourth biggest supermarket.

Morrisons's sales fell 0.9pc in the 12 months to January, according to the latest Kantar data, as the cost-of-living crisis prompted some shoppers to switch to German discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Pressure on household budgets has helped Aldi grow its sales by more than 20pc over the past year and it now commands 9.4pc of the market, compared to Morrisons’s 9pc.

However, Kantar’s latest figures showed signs that the Bradford-based chain was finally starting to stem the decline in takings.

Competition from the German discounters has sparked an intense price war in the supermarket sector, with Tesco and Sainsbury’s both promising to match Aldi’s prices on a range of products.

Earlier this year Morrisons announced it was cutting back on the range of foods it stocks to help reduce costs and allow it to lower prices.

Changes included reducing the number of crumpets on offer from three to four. Morrisons chief executive David Potts said at the time it was "more cost effective when we go down to three, to drive volume down the [production] line without changing over [between the packs] as often".

A spokesman said the latest announcement meant customers could be "reassured that despite this inflationary market, the price of these 1,000 items will not increase and will instead be locked to help them plan their grocery budgets".