Bread has become the latest staple to fall in price with Tesco and Aldi announcing on Wednesday they were cutting the cost of own-brand products.
Tesco’s 800g white sliced pan, which currently costs 99 cent, will be priced at 89 cent from Thursday with corresponding reductions applied to other own-brand bread products.
“It’s been an incredibly tough year for many of our customers, and we have been determined to try and alleviate that pressure,” said Tesco Ireland chief executive Natasha Adams.
“We are extremely conscious of the cost-of-living challenge being experienced by our customers, which is why we are moving to reduce the cost of another daily staple.”
Aldi also confirmed it would be reducing prices of its own-brand bread products from Thursday, with its sliced pans cut by up to 10 cent.
“Where input costs improve, for us and our suppliers, we will respond,” said Niall O’Connor, group managing director of Aldi Ireland.
He added that Aldi monitored “prices and market factors on a daily basis, and our real-time focus means we can respond quickly.”
He said he had outlined at the meeting of the Retail Forum on Wednesday that “the environment remains challenging. Our response to the challenging backdrop remains multi-dimensional - shielding customers, working with suppliers, always having a discount versus the larger supermarkets, and monitoring the market in real time”.
The bread reductions follow recent butter and milk price cuts by supermarkets.
Minister for State at the Department of Enterprise, Neale Richmond, had called the meeting of the forum which is made up of retailers, representative groups, academics and civil servants, in order to establish why the price of more staples have not fallen.
