For supermarkets that hope that the British public cannot add up.

The easiest way to avoid being ripped off is to know (or have a rough estimate of) the going rate for the product.

A good place to start is Andrex toilet roll multi-packs.
There's a good reason why the supermarkets offer you three different pack sizes to buy, confusion costs.
Some are better value than others, some are blatantly more expensive and some pack sizes are just another way they can differentiate from other supermarkets.

The first thing to bare in mind, is that multi packs should work out cheaper than the traditional pack size, if bought in the same quantity.

Tesco are currently selling various multi-pack sizes for Andrex toilet rolls:
(For ease of clarity, I'll just go with the three packs I was looking at)

9 roll "classic" pack at £5.95
24 roll "gentle clean" at £11.85
16 roll "supreme quilts" at £11.50 but clubcard price is £9

To start with, I look at the bog standard, classic 4 pack.
Tesco selling these at £2.85
For years they were £1.90 to £2 - then the supermarkets (in unison, funny that!) started upping the price of these (to make the multi packs appear good value)
My Going Rate starting price would be £2 for every 4 rolls.

9 roll "classic" multi pack is £5.95
2 times 4 rolls = £4
The one roll left over is costing me £1.95
This is not good value.
(Even if my going rate was £2.50, 8 rolls would work out at £5 (62.5p a roll) - leaving 95p for the final roll)

24 roll pack at £11.85
6 packs of four rolls at £2 (my going rate) works out at £12, a saving of just 15p, when buying 24 rolls!
Not really good value.

16 roll pack at £9 (if you have a clubcard)
4 packs of four rolls at £2 (my going rate) works out at £8, yet tesco are charging £9, a pound more!
Not good value.

None purchased.

Now I know, people will comment with things like, "Your going rate is too low" and "don't buy from there then!" etc, etc.
I don't care.
I know what my going rate is for things, I apply it to see if there's any value in supermarket "sales"

Multi-packs are supposed to be much cheaper, buying in bulk so to speak, more often than not, this is clearly not the case.
Savings from buying the regular small packs are sometimes nil, sometimes a few pence and sometimes supermarkets' are charging more for a multi-pack.

Why are two or more brands not matching the £3 price at the same time?

It's as if they are colluding, surely they wouldn't be doing that? Would they?

If I owned a major teabag brand and one of my rival brands was selling their teabags for £3 for a 240 pack, I'd instinctively match their price to maintain sales and be competitive.
Factor in that the big supermarkets (over 70% market share) have deals on the same brand of teabags at the same time and all rotate their offers between each big brand, I don't see much "competition driving down prices for the consumer," do you?

The quality of the meat I get from the local butchers is far superior to that of a supermarket, time from supplier to counter is vastly lower at the butchers, the meat is bought locally, which keeps costs down, less emissions, etc. (The money generated also stays in the local area, as opposed to going to shareholders in far off lands)
But also my local butchers does not buy in bulk, so does not have the buying power, farm discounts, etc, of a supermarket. In theory, these should outweigh the extra storage, chiller, transportation costs easily.

* 3 prime fillet steaks
* A prime steak joint, which my butcher was about to cut 3 fillet steaks from.

Total weight: 1450g (1.45kg) of prime fillet steak - Asda price (£34 per KG or £3.40 per 100g) = £49.30

* 14 Pork and apple sausages

Closest available comparison at Asda was two 6 packs of pork and apple sausages - Asda price (For two 6 packs, 12 sausages at £2.50 a pack) = £5

* Lean braising steak (5 slices - I never buy the diced stuff)

Total weight: 950g of braising steak - Asda price (From the "Butchers counter" - which is misleading as it's the same meat off the shelf) is 97.5p per 100g = £9.26

* Streaky bacon

Total weight: 450g of streaky bacon - Asda price (79.2p per 100g) = £3.17

Total Asda price would have been £66.73
Total local butcher price was.... £35

"Saving you money everyday" say Asda.
Exactly how are they allowed to get away with these claims?

On meat, I've proved that shopping at your local butcher gets you higher quality, younger and fresher meat.
On price, my local butcher beats Asda by a country mile.

If you want genuine quality, permanently lower prices, better service, then shop local.
Can you afford not to?

A 72 packsize of Weetabix is reduced to £5 (shown with a yellow offer shelf edge label), but none are in stock at our nearest store.
However, on the Asda website, under special offers, the product is not listed.
It is listed as a normal price of £5.

So is it an "Offer" or not?

To make matters worse, the manufacturer's offer of 72 weetabix for the price of 48 offer, is nowhere to be seen on Asda's website.
It is available in Asda stores though, they would rather not inform you about it!
In the normal location for weetabix, there is nothing about it.
But take a walk down to the bottom of the cereal aisle and there on a tiny metal hanger display, on the bottom shelf, stands just 6 boxes of the "50% Free" manufacturer's offer!

The price of these 48 pack sized weetabix is £4.18, much cheaper and better value than Asda's £5 "offer" that's not an offer according to their website.
An opportunity exists here, thanks to the manufacturer of weetabix, to SAVE people money, when given the chance, Asda CHOOSE not to promote it!

Shortly before [Read: In the last 7 days] this fantastic "offer" for customers was advertised on shelf and on their website, the actual price of readybrek was, yes you guessed it, £1.50 per pack.
At the same time as the "2 for £3" offer came on, asda increased the regular price of readybrek 500g packs from £1.50 to £2.18 (this is a staggering 45% price increase)

At a time when family budgets are stretched to breaking point, we could well do without mismarketing and deceptive practices from a supermarket, which advertises that they are "saving you money everyday" - the simple message to them, is stop playing corporate games with people's household budgets!

I did ask Asda (and the new twitter account "asdahelp" - which doesn't show up in #asda search results) how this readybrek "2 for £3" was an offer, they declined to answer, not once, but FOUR TIMES!
We did get a new follower - asda service team - but no response from them either. (How many twitter accounts do they need/staff?)
Asda's silence speaks volumes, I don't know how they get away with it!

If asda and tesco are "saving you money everyday" and stating "every little helps" - why are their prices for a warburtons toastie loaf artificially higher than local independants that buy from a nearby cash & carry (where the current trade price is 92p) and in considerably lower volumes each week?

Running very low last week, I nipped into our local Tesco store, to pick up a packet.
"We have the regular branded ones or our own tesco version..." said the lady at the counter.

*Out of principle, I never buy supermarket own brands. Sounds daft I know, but own brand goods are priced at the price that branded products used to be, the branded price is almost always over inflated to give the false impression that the supermarket own brand is good value... which it is not.

I'll take the branded pack please...
"That's £4.66 please!"
HOW MUCH?
"Our tesco own brand is over a pound cheaper?"
You mean they are the price that the branded ones used to be, before your own version came out?
"The branded ones are more expensive because you are paying for their name!"
I don't believe you are correct with that statement!
"It's inflation as well..."
At £4.66 that would make inflation around 50%... I don't think so!

I double checked today with our own local pharmacy. The branded ones are available off the shelf, to the public, for a staggering... £3.11
Proof if it were needed, that tesco is over inflating the price of branded goods to make their own version appear cheaper and good value.
In the case of cocodamol, they contain exactly the same ingredients, the same number of tablets, but now the customer has to pay the same price for their own brand of product (making them more profit) or pay way over the odds for the trusted branded version.

The sooner those in power get a grip of this sharp practice, the sooner the inflation rate will start to fall.