Califia Barista Oat Milk - same product - 2 different bar codes & 2 prices at Sainsbury's

paulhird

Sainsbury's were selling 1 litre cartons of Califia Barista Oat Milk yesterday at £1.50 in the fridge and £2.10 on the shelf.  Both appear identical UHT products with identical packaging and ingredients - except they different barcodes.  Califia confirm on their website that their carton products do not require refrigeration before opening.  So it appears Califia and Sainsbury's may be trying to con their shoppers by offering the same product at 2 different prices.  I bought the cheaper refrigerated product and stored it in the kitchen cupboard - 60p (over 25%) saved.  

Nearlyold

If it's designed as a "con" it seems an unusual way to do it given that refrigerated products usually command a price premium over similar ambient (long life) products. Remember Sunny D which was placed with refrigerated goods in stores even though it was not necessary.

maisie_cat

We buy both uht and fresh milk, fresh milk is cheaper so perhaps sainsburys needed an oat milk in the chilled section but needed a fresh comparison price? If it has a different bar code it's not legally the same. Companies get round the price comparison thing by using different item numbers all the time. John Lewis did it with appliance numbers decades ago.

Mnoee

They're usually the same price - the £1.50 price must have been an offer. At least both are showing at £2.10 for me today! It's handy to know both are uht and shelf stable, but the different barcodes are probably not a con, just them competing with every other non-dairy brand who do both chilled and uht - if they say to Sainsbury's 'just put half in the fridge' it's harder to know whether they actually are, and track things like the popularity of chilled over shelf. The fridge ones are usually seen as 'premium', I can understand them wanting guaranteed shelf space in that section.

Good money-saving spot, but not anything sinister, I reckon. 

pumpkin89

They are priced the same at £2.10, but the chilled version is currently on promotion at £1.50.  There are various reasons why Sainsbury's may be unable to run the same promotion on the ambient version.  Most likely that will go on promotion at some point in the future when the chilled version is still at full price - which is good for us as customers, since we can benefit from the lower prices more of the time.