Business reporter
Tesco has raised the price of its lunchtime meal deal in the latest example of rising food prices in the UK.
The price of a main, snack and drink has gone up from £3.60 to £3.85 for Clubcard holders from Thursday. Customers who do not have a loyalty card will see the price rise from £4 to £4.25.
The sandwich, snack and drink deal had cost £3 for 10 years before prices were hiked in October 2022 when food prices were rising at their fastest rate in 42 years.
The different prices for those with and without a Clubcard also reflect how the UK’s biggest supermarkets are using loyalty cards to compete for customers as rising food prices squeeze margins.
Loyalty cards are a way for retailers to collect data on what customers are buying and offer them more at lower prices. Some 80% of Tesco shoppers are believed to use its Clubcard scheme.
The average person has loyalty cards for three supermarkets, data from research firm Kantar suggests.
Tesco said its meal deal “remains great value”.
It confirmed some of the most expensive items in the standard meal deal would cost more than £8 if purchased separately.
The supermarket also offers a premium meal deal which has gone up from £5 to £5.50 for those with a Clubcard and £6 for those without.
KristinaWhen Kristina, 19, from Nottingham heard about the price rise she posted a photo on X captioned “One last time…Here’s my last £3.60 meal deal farewell.”
She told the Tesco’s offer was good if you were in a rush but it had got more expensive over time and she felt other shops like Poundland offered better value.
“Unless other places whack up their prices heavily, I won’t buy another meal deal from Tesco for a very long time,” she said.
“Most other stuff at Tesco has gone up in price overnight too, it’s now more or less the same price as Waitrose.”
Tesco’s meal deal price hike follows a similar change by Sainsbury’s, which put its lunchtime multibuy up from £3.75 to £3.95 in June. It is the same price for customers whether they have its Nectar loyalty card or not.
“With millions of possible combinations, we continue to offer one of the best value meal deals around,” a Sainsbury’s spokesperson said.
Boots told the is had no plans to put up prices for its meal deal, which costs £3.99, or £3.60 with an Advantage Card. The same deal costs £4.99 in London stores and airports, or £4.50 with an Advantage Card.
Asda also said it did not have plans to raise the price of its Food To Go three-for-two deal on lunch items.
The rising cost of food has been persistent, with the latest inflation figures showing food and non-alcoholic drink prices rose 4.9% in the year to July.
But a look at the trend over in five years to July, food prices increased by around 37%. That compares with a rise of 4.4% over the previous five-year period.
Tesco is among dozens of retailers who have written to Chancellor Rachel Reeves to warn that any new taxes on businesses she could announce in the Autumn Budget would push up prices further for customers.
The letter sent by the British Retail Consortium on Thursday said: “As retailers, we have done everything we can to shield our customers from the worst inflationary pressures but as they persist, it is becoming more and more challenging for us to absorb the cost pressures we face.”
It said changes the government has already made to employer National Insurance, higher employment costs and the introduction of a new packaging tax had added £7bn in new costs to retail businesses.
The Bank of England has said these cost increases may have added 1% to 2% to food prices. It expects food price inflation to peak at around 5.5% at the end of the year, before falling to between 2% and 3% in 2026.
