‘Misleading’ stores may face court

In a report on supermarket price wars for BBC1’s Panorama programme, Deborah Parry said many of the pricing tactics used by Tesco, Leeds-based Asda, Sainsbury’s and Bradford-based Morrisons could potentially be illegal.

Tonight’s edition of Panorama comes at the end of a year in which the big four have opened more than 200 new stores. Between them they now control 68 per cent of the UK grocery market with £65bn of the £96bn spent in the last year going through their tills.

In the programme, Panorama reporter Sophie Raworth takes a trip around supermarkets near her home and finds mistakes and misleading claims in all of them.

She found 17 items presented as bigger pack, better value which were in fact worse value.

The supermarkets said they displayed unit prices so shoppers could compare but admitted when smaller packs are on promotion they may be cheaper.