The branded staple foods costing up to 910% more than their budget counterparts

Published

2 years ago

September 22, 2023

admin

Rice, spaghetti, baked beans and tea bags are among the staple items costing three times as much if the budget versions are not available in supermarkets, new research has found.

Which? analysed the prices of almost 26,000 food and drink products for its inflation tracker at eight major supermarkets – Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and Waitrose.

And in a separate piece of research, the consumer champion looked at the difference in price of some everyday food staples between the budget range, standard own-brand, and comparable branded versions.

In the worst example, Which? found shoppers could be faced with having to pay 246% more at Asda where the budget range version, Just Essentials by Asda Long Grain Rice 1kg at 52p was not available, as the standard own-brand, Asda Easy Cook Long Grain White Rice 1kg was £1.80.

If no own-brand options were available, a popular comparable branded alternative, Ben’s Original Long Grain Rice 1kg, was £4.85 – an increase of 833% on the budget range version.

It was a similar story at Tesco where the budget version, Grower’s Harvest Long Grain Rice 1Kg (52p) was not available. The standard own-brand item – Tesco Easy Cook Long Grain Rice 1Kg was £1.25.

That means customers would have to pay 140% more. At Tesco, Which? found Ben’s Original Long Grain Rice 1Kg (£5.25) was 910% more than the budget range version.

At Morrisons, budget Savers Baked Beans 410g were 27p, but standard own-brand Morrisons Baked Beans 410g were 48p – 78% more. There, the Heinz Baked Beans 415g were £1.39, a gram-for-gram increase of 396%.

Similarly at Sainsbury’s, Which? found the budget range, Hubbard’s Foodstore Baked Beans 400g were 27p while standard own-brand Sainsbury’s Baked Beans 400g were 43p – a 59% increase. The branded version, Heinz Baked Beans 415g was £1.40 and while the tin was slightly bigger, it still worked out gram for gram as 400% more than the budget version.

Which?’s inflation tracker found annual grocery inflation slowed to 12.5% in August – its lowest since September 2022, and considerably below the highs of 17.2% found earlier this year.

Some supermarkets have taken steps to help customers. Morrisons has started to stock 10 budget range items in 500 of its Daily stores and has said 30 more will follow. Tesco has vowed to swap branded goods with cheaper branded or own brand alternatives in Express stores.

Sue Davies, Which? Head of Food Policy, said: “As millions struggle with increased food prices and other high household bills, it’s staggering that shoppers face paying over three times more for items if they can’t get to a larger supermarket.”

She called on all major supermarkets to ensure expensive convenience stores are stocked with a range of essential budget ranges.

What the supermarkets said

Which? alerted all eight supermarkets to its research – just two replied.

Morrisons called it an “unprecedented period of inflation” and said it was working hard to keep prices down and competitive for its customers.

A spokesperson for Morrisons said: “This year we have announced a number of price cuts which have seen the prices of thousands of products lowered. Over the summer, we also ran our Summer Collector scheme, which enabled customers to receive a significant money-off voucher at the end of August if they have met the criteria and shopped in four of the relevant weeks.”

Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s said it was “leading the industry on passing through lower costs on the products our customers buy most often and as a result, prices on our top 100 selling products are lower than they were in March”.

Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts

A spokesperson for Sainsbury’s added: “Our rate of inflation has been consistently behind the wider market for some time now – passing on less inflation than our major competitors, month after month for the past year and a half.

“In the last two years we have invested over £560m to keep our prices low and we are focused on saving customers money through key initiatives like our Stamford Street own-brand value range, our biggest ever Aldi Price Match and through Nectar Prices.”

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

2 hours ago

July 5, 2025

admin

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

5 hours ago

July 5, 2025

admin

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

7 hours ago

July 5, 2025

admin

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.