Rivals dismiss Tesco price cuts as `hype'

Price cuts announced yesterday by Tesco Ireland were dismissed by competitors as "hype" to rescue an "under-par sales performance".

Tesco claims customers will benefit from average price cuts of almost 14 per cent on some 200 items.

Many of the price cuts relate to Tesco own-brand products but several branded items are also included.

Mr Dermot Breen, director of corporate affairs and communications with Tesco, said: "We have cut well over 500 prices over the past year and most of these cuts have been sustained in store".

Mr Breen said prices dropped under Tesco's "Forever Cutting Prices" campaign were held at the reduced price for a minimum of three months. But, he added, the vast majority of prices reduced under the campaign over the past year had been maintained at their cut prices or reduced further.

Mr Eoin McGettigan, executive chairman of Musgrave Supervalu-Centra, accused Tesco of relying on "exaggerated statements" about price cuts "to win back shoppers". "All that Tesco is doing is temporarily reducing the price of a handful of low value, low volume items, the majority of which are UK imports and very few of which are brand leaders," he said.

He said Supervalu and Centra stores would have more than 300 grocery items on price promotion at any one time, most of them leading Irish brands.