ASDA organic prices

MrsStepford

For years, I have praised ASDA for great quality organic produce, at comparatively reasonable prices.

At the weekend, I noticed that ASDA organic ripe avocados had leapt in price from £1 each to 1.20.

It looks like ASDA has raised quite a few organic produce prices. Husband bought an organic cucumber from Sainsbury's for 95p on Saturday. They are now 1.05 in ASDA.

I realise that some MSErs will troll me for buying organic in the first place. But if you look at The Dirty Dozen lists from EWG and PAN you will see just how much of the non-organic food sold in the US & UK has high amounts of pesticide and herbicide residues on them. No-one studies the accumulative effect of these chemicals in our health, nor the chemicals in our food such as preservatives, emulsifiers, stabilisers, colours, artificial flavourings etc.

 Secondly, the UK government approved gene-editing last year and although it's not here yet, we won't know when it arrives, as it won't be labelled.

Already, non-organic animals and poultry in the UK can be fed GM crops and feed and the resulting meat, poultry, eggs and dairy doesn't need to be labelled.

The UK diet is the unhealthiest in Europe, with 59% of the food we consume being ultra-processed. In Portugal, it's only 10%.

I am very much hoping that the ASDA price rises don't result in higher prices in other supermarkets too and/or a drop in quality. 

born_again

Not going to knock you choice of food. That is your choice.

But is it not just inflation. Or not sure where they source from. Due to increased shipping costs due to the ongoing issue in the Red Sea?

Mnoee

The organic cucumbers in Sainsbury's are on nectar price at the moment - I know as I have one in my basket! The normal price is more than Asda. 

The supermarkets all compete on many cheap/basic items (or price match aldi), but there's not quite so much competition for the more specialist items. So many items have seen a 20% or more increase lately. Whether you're talking organic avocados or 4 packs of Crunchies, jumping from £1 to £1.20 or £1.25 just isn't a shock to me anymore.

Emmia

Asda is slightly in the financial do do, as it was purchased on a massively leveraged basis, and now the Issa Brothers who own it have fallen out. 

Unlike leveraged football teams (Man United for example) people don't tend to be loyal to a supermarket - they shop where it's cheaper, closer to their home or work or a place that has the products they want to buy.

Anyway, back to the point - price rises happen due to supply chain and related costs being passed onto the shopper, this ultimately includes the money needed to service those big loans used to buy Asda.

Largs

When I discuss price rises at Asda, my friend says its becuase they don't have the buying power now compared to when Walmart was the owner.  I don't agree, it's either to do with all those petrol stations they bought or to pay for the silly Asda Rewards scheme.  What I do know, is I am hardly ever in there now due to the price rises.  Maybe in a few weeks they will "rollback" the produce you buy to the previous price to much fanfare.

HillStreetBlues

With organic people if they choose to can cut costs and buy non-organic.
So they start to sell less, but as they have pre-ordered they can't put the price up straight away as end up having unsold stock.
They will wait until they can order less then can rise the price  allowing for the reduced sales.

njm123

Probably a combination of all of the above plus others including

- Inflation - supplier costs, own wage, rent  and energy costs 
- Checking market position against other supermarkets, if they cost more ASDA can afford to raise the price.
- Price cuts on other lines, have to be paid for in part by customers - it's noticeable that whenever a supermarket announces it's investing £XM in price cuts - a lot of lines that aren't the target of a price cut get a small rise to compensate,

- Other supermarkets may have raised their prices and ASDA have followed, always amazes me how when supermarket A raises the price of an own brand product by Xp, all their rivals make the same change within hours.  Even if the cost from suppliers for their next order is going up I can't believe they all ran out of stock from their last order on the same day to necessitate an immediate price rise.    Supermarkets and their suppliers may as well be  operating a cartel  despite what they tell MPs, just organised enough that it's a natural occurrence of their legitimate business practices rather than any illegal agreement.
 

pumpkin89

Lots of people appear to believe that there is a direct relationship between the price a supermarket charges a customer and the price they paid their supplier.  That simply isn't the case.  Different categories of products have vastly different margins, and within each category there will be significant variation between brands, packs etc.  The key thing for the supermarket is to make as much money as possible overall.

If ASDA wants to lower some of its prices, for example in the new Fab 5 fruit & veg offer, it will need to raise other prices to compensate.  It is a small player in organic food (about 4% market share vs 12% of total grocery) and organic shoppers are objectively less price sensitive, so it makes sense to raise those prices.