Fighting back against supermarkets

After Heinz soups price increases at both asda and tesco in recent months, including tomato soup, we noticed that Napolina tinned tomatoes were increasing in price as well.
Yesterdays visit to asda, we spotted another hefty percentage price increase, where tomatoes are concerned.

Heinz tomato sauce (in bottles) has gone from 87p per bottle to £1.03 - a staggering 15.5% INCREASE in price.

Glass bottles of Heinz tomato sauce are preferable to "the squeezy bottle" as the squeezy has something added to it, that is not tomato (or a thinner mix of tomato) to stop it clogging. The impression given to the customer is of course, that there is less waste and it is easier to handle... which hides an increase in price no doubt.

The argument for more tomatoes to be grown in the UK is as strong as ever.
A quick search around reveals that most tomato price increases have taken place in exporters Israel, Ghana and the Netherlands.
My initial thoughts were that with these three producers putting up "wholesale" prices, this explains the rise in tomato products - yet when reports in the Grocer magazine appear on the subject of how competitive the UK tomato import market is, a different view appears.

The Grocer reports that we British are already major importers of tomatoes, Spain and Holland being our biggest providers.
However, British tomato growers need to be more competitive on price, as Poland (16,000 tonnes) and Morocco (20,000 tonnes) flood our tomato market.
With the Dutch and Spanish unlikely to give up their market share of imports of tomatoes to the UK, price is the all important factor.

Read the full Grocer article here

Which raises the question - with competition so healthy as four countries do battle to supply us with tomatoes, why are asda increasing the prices of tomato products?