Prices for fresh fruit sold by the world's third-largest food retailer, Tesco, in its home market have changed dramatically overnight after the company implemented a major overhaul of its entire pricing strategy on Monday, 26 September.
The move, which is part of an overall bid by Tesco to strengthen what remains a leading position in its home market, has been labelled as the Big Price Drop and saw the group cut prices across thousands of essential items including fresh fruit and vegetables.
The Big Price Drop will reportedly cost Tesco more than £500m (€571m), although analysts have pointed out that savings made elsewhere – notably by ending double points on purchases made by Clubcard loyalty scheme members and reducing the number of products sold on promotion – will in reality see that figure fall dramatically.
Analysis carried out by Eurofruit suggests Tesco's fresh fruit department has followed the pattern predicted last week by introducing lower prices across commonly purchased items while withdrawing promotional prices and multibuy offers previously available to the retailer's customers.
Prices for many of its apple lines, for example, have been slashed, with a bag of Class One Braeburn now £1.40 (€1.60) compared with £1.75 (€2.00) and packs of Tesco Goodness for Kids apples down from £1.50 (€1.72) to £1.00 (€1.14).
Even club apple brand Pink Lady, which traditionally carries a premium over other varieties in the category, has had its loose price cut from £0.42 (€0.48) to £0.31 (€0.35), although pre-pack bags of Pink Lady were unchanged.
Bags of Tesco Organic Braeburn and Royal Gala remain unchanged, but a promotional three-for-two multibuy offer has been cancelled.
Elsewhere, there have been plenty of other notable reductions in price, including: punnets of four home-ripen peaches or nectarines, down from £3.29 (€3.76) to £1.00 (€1.14); loose red seedless grapes, down from £2.26 (€2.59) to £1.29 (€1.48); and packs of six Class One kiwifruit, down from £1.49 (€1.70) to £1.00 (€1.14) and now part of a two-for-one offer.
Prices for punnets of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries all remained intact, but in the majority of cases multibuy offers have all been cancelled.
