Supermarket chain Morrisons (LON:MRW) has stoked the supermarket price war by lowering the price of price of 200 items including milk, butter and bread.
Morrisons and its ‘big four’ rivals are battling the surge in popularity of discounters Aldi and Lidl, and online shopping.
The latest cuts include reducing 4 pints of semi skimmed milk to 89p from £1, and knocking 25% off the price of Tate & Lyle’s (LON:TATE) fair trade granulated sugar.
Last year, the company, then headed by former chief Dalton Phillips, committed £1bn to price cuts.
Phillips has now departed but the lower prices remain under new-boy David Potts who took over in March this year.
Potts said: “We want to be the best value retailer – offering customers the best price for good quality British products.
“Today we’ve reset some of our prices so that our cupboard essentials will be amongst the lowest on the market.”
Share prices across the sector also got marked down after Morrisons’ move.
Its own shares eased 1.3% to 171p, while investors also saw the news as a bad sign for rival Tesco (LON:TSCO), which fell 1.5% to 202p.