Morrisons slashes prices on 500 grocery products

The Bradford-based grocer has cut the prices of 500 popular items including coffee, biscuits, beef mince and potatoes as it bids to revive flatlining sales.

Morrisons said the average price reductions of 15% would make products “more affordable” with prices that were “stable for consumers”.

Hundreds more price cuts are scheduled in the coming weeks.

Morrisons group commercial director Andy Atkinson said: “These price cuts will help customers manage their budgets. We’re cutting the price of hundreds of our customers’ favourite items and are holding them low.”

The move comes a week after Tesco launched its Aldi Price Match campaign in an aggressive counter-attack on its discount rival.

The supermarket giant cut the prices of around 200 branded and own-label items, including bags of bananas, bread and cucumbers, as it bids to keep shoppers out of the clutches of Aldi and its arch rival Lidl.

Tesco said the move was designed to ensure customers were “saving themselves a trip” to Aldi or Lidl to pick up certain products at lower prices.

The intense competition in the UK grocery sector has turned up the heat on Morrisons in recent months.

Britain’s fourth-largest supermarket chain suffered a disappointing Christmas trading period and also emerged as the worst-performing member of the big four in the latest industry data from Kantar. Its sales fell 2% in the 12 weeks to February 23, pushing its market share down from 10.4% to 10.2%.

In January, Retail Week revealed that Morrisons is axing 3,000 department managers across its store estate as part of a restructure of shopfloor teams.

The grocer will create 7,000 new hourly paid roles in their place, which it said would add more customer-facing positions across its shops.