Tesco promises to beat rivals Aldi, Lidl and Asda on THOUSANDS of own-brand products

TESCO has kick-started a supermarket price war by promising to beat the prices of thousands own-brand products at rivals Aldi, Lidl and Asda. 

Under the new plans Tesco will match 60 per cent of Aldi and Lidl products - but it's premium range will be excluded from the price pledge.

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It also plans to be a cheap as Asda but as high quality as Sainsbury's by putting its food through rigorous taste tests.

At present, Tesco matches prices of own-brand products across 500 lines. It will now extend this by bench-marking a total of 11,000 lines.

Tesco told the Sun Online that the changes would not "take place overnight". In fact, it is part of a "long-term" strategy.

Tesco's chief executive Dave Lewis told The Grocer he wanted to be as transparent as possible to suppliers while not giving rivals a competitive advantage.

Mr Lewis yesterday warned global suppliers to not artificially inflate their prices because of the fall in the pound.

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He said price rises needed to be "legitimate".  He added: “We buy virtually everything for our own label, so there isn’t an ingredient or a commodity out there that we don’t have very good insight into…

“We’re not naive to the fact that there’s inflationary pressure.
 “You see it already in some categories. Pork has been affected much sooner than other [foods].”

The value of the pound has fallen by up to 18 per cent against the dollar and euro since the vote to leave the European Union.

This has put pressure on manufacturers to put up prices or find other ways to reduce costs, such as decreasing pack sizes.

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Earlier this week the Sun Online revealed how sharing-sized bags of Maltesers and Galaxy Counters has shrunk in size.

The "pouch" sized bags have a price tag of £150. The previous - bigger - bags were sold at a higher price of £1.82, although they had been on offer for £1 in some shops.

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It comes a week after Toblerone faced furious backlash after changing the shape of its renowned chocolate bars.

The product makers Mondelez International have increased the gap between the peaks to reduce the weight of 400g and 170g bars.

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