Aldi price matched products at Tesco not like-for-like, Panorama finds
Some of the products in Tesco’s Aldi Price Match scheme are not like-for-like and contain less of the product’s main ingredient, a new report shows.
According to BBC Panorama, of 122 Tesco products analysed in August, 38 had at least five percentage points of less of the main ingredient than the discounter’s products that they had been price matched to.
Examples of this included chicken nuggets, where Tesco’s product contained 39% chicken, while Aldi’s contained 60%, and chilli con carne where the discount grocer’s contained 27% beef, compared with 15% at Tesco.
On the other hand, there were 12 of the supermarket giant’s products which were found to have more of the main ingredient than Aldi.
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These included Tesco’s Hearty Food Co 10 fish fingers which included 64% Alaska pollock, in comparison to Aldi’s Everyday Essentials fish fingers which had 58%, and Tesco’s Eastmans coleslaw with 57% cabbage compared to the discounter’s The Deli Creamy coleslaw with 47%.
Tesco told the BBC that it constantly reviews the quality of its products and has processes to make sure its Aldi price matched products are comparable to the discount grocer’s products.
It said that it does not necessarily mean that a product with a higher proportion of any one ingredient means that it is of better quality and added that all of its products include ingredient information so that customers can make informed decisions.
Tesco is just one of four traditional UK supermarkets that price match one or both of the discount grocers, alongside Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons.
In January, Asda became the first supermarket to price match both Aldi and Lidl, while Morrisons followed suit in February, offering hundreds of weekly essentials at the same price or lower than at Aldi and Lidl.




