kshirley | 
January 15, 2009| 
Supervalu Carlow are running a special offer until the end of January – for every 50 Euro you spend on Thursday and Fridays you get 6 Euro off. It’s in the form of savings stamps but they can be cashed immediately.
That’s 12% off – Not bad in a cut throat industry. After that it’s continues but at 3 Euro per 50 Euro.
It’s my local Supermarket so I was wondering if the prices are higher in the first place – negating any savings. I decided to test it against Tesco to see what the totals would be – and boy was I surprised.
Here are the products I was able to compare directly – no special offers.
| Supervalu | Tesco | |
| Kleenex Balsalm | €2.50 | €3.00 |
| mixed ovals | €2.20 | €2.19 |
| avonmore milk – super | €1.44 | €1.44 |
| cesar 4 pk | €4.01 | €3.99 |
| Charleville Edam Slices 200g | €3.79 | €3.69 |
| avonmore cream 500ml | €3.89 | €3.99 |
| fruit n fibre | €3.11 | €2.99 |
| Haagen-Dazs – 500ml | €6.38 | €6.35 |
| Persil Bio Small & Mighty 730ml | €5.81 | €5.99 |
| sour cream | €1.49 | €1.59 |
| Roma Spagetti 500g | €1.55 | €1.49 |
| Pomgranet juice | €2.53 | €2.89 |
| Heinz Curry beans | €1.19 | €0.75 |
| john west tuna | €1.46 | €1.49 |
| cif cream | €1.43 | €2.10 |
| kleenex tissue double | €3.66 | €3.64 |
| Charleville grated cheese | €3.19 | €3.09 |
| Total | €49.63 | €50.67 |
I was surprised that Tesco was more expensive – and that the prices were either almost exactly the same or wildly off.
The funny thing is – price is not everything. I would have accepted a slightly higher price for Supervalu as it’s so convenient for me.
January 18th, 2009 at 21:56
That is a surprise. Although Im sure if you were to buy tesco brand equivalents you could come out a lot cheaper. Which is what attracts many people to Tesco.
But also, thanks to their branding, there is an assumption / feeling that everything is cheaper in the shop. A comparison like this shows just how good their branding is!
January 27th, 2009 at 10:08
It seems I might have been lucky with my price check – I’m been told that SuperValu are one of the chains that don’t pass on the savings made with the current Sterling exchange rate.
My suspicion is more that none of the supermarket chains pass on the savings if they can get away with it.