Trading standards officers are said to be investigating Tesco, which is accused of misleading shoppers over a 'half-price' fresh produce promotion, after research by a Sunday newspaper revealed the retailer had increased prices in the period before starting the campaign.
Tesco has made a Fruit & Veg Pledge, to halve the price of five different fruits and vegetables every week for the whole of 2007 - to push consumers along the track to eating 5 A DAY.
In a TV advert, TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh tells viewers: "Let's face it, eating five a day isn't that easy. So every week for the whole of 2007 we promise to halve the price of five different fruit and veg. Which should help keep you nice and healthy, not to mention your bank balance." He concludes on the supermarket's famous slogan: "The Tesco Fruit 'N Veg pledge - Every Little helps."
But research in yesterday’s The Mail on Sunday suggests that prices on items featured in the promotion rose abruptly just days before the start of the offer, making the promotional offer in fact half the higher price.
According to the research, four of the products featured in the first week of the promotion in January suffered a sudden price hike at the end of December - immediately prior to the 50-per-cent-cut.
• Gala apples, it is said, were priced by Tesco at £1.19 a kilo on December 11, went up to £1.99 on December 18, and were then reduced to 99p on January 1 for the promotion.
• Peaches were allegedly priced at £1.99 on December 11 for a 500g punnet, then went up to £2.99 on December 28. On January 1, they were reduced by 50 per cent to £1.48.
• Nectarines were priced at £1.49 for 500g on December 11, then researchers claim they went to £2.99 on December 28, before being reduced n by 50 per cent to £1.48 on January 1.
• Plums, it said, followed a similar pattern.
Martin Fisher, from the Trading Standards Institute, told The Mail on Sunday that Tesco was “grossly” exploiting' loopholes in the industry code on pricing which allows them to cut prices on goods which will go rotten if they are not sold quickly.
Fruit and vegetables are exempted from the '28-day rule' in the Department Of Trade And Industry's code of practice on price indications, which states that shops can only advertise a discount on a product if it has been priced at the higher rate for the past 28 days. With fruit and vegetables, the publicised discount has to relate only to the last advertised price.
A Tesco spokesman did not deny the sharp pattern of price changes in the highlighted products, but claimed it was due to seasonal price fluctuations. He said: "At Tesco, we're doing more than any supermarket to make it easy and affordable for our customers to get their five a day. Any suggestion we ramp up prices in order to cut them again is the purest nonsense."
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