J Sainsbury PLC (LSE:SBRY) will invest £15mln into cutting prices of its groceries as the supermarket price war hots up.
Reductions on own-branded products will be rolled out on Tuesday alongside cuts for jam, honey and cornflakes.
The UK’s second-largest supermarket also said its whole chicken breasts will be price matched to Aldi for the first time.
“These latest price cuts will help reassure customers that we will continue to pass on savings as soon as we see the wholesale price of food fall,” said Rhian Bartlett, Sainsbury’s food commercial director.
Food inflation has been persistently high this year and is one of the key drivers in stopping the government’s aim to halve headline inflation this year.
Last month, supermarket inflation came in at its lowest point in all of 2023, but this was still 16.5%, according to Kantar data.
The British Retail Consortium claimed that supermarkets had not been profiteering and that companies had been reducing prices despite operating on a tight margin.
Last week both Morrisons and Marks & Spencer’s said they would be slashing the prices on key items like beef mince.
Sainsbury’s, like Tesco, previously dropped prices of dairy products last month and as input costs ease and the retailers come out of fixed contracts additional products are expected to be reduced.
Revenues for the supermarket came in at £31.4bln in the financial year to March 2023, up from £28.9bln in the year prior.