Supermarket sweep!

Celt's secret shopping survey

SuperValu emerged the cheapest retailer in County Cavan when it comes to buying certain staple household commodities, according to a survey done by The Anglo-Celt on a small basket of shopping. It was closely followed by Tesco, with Aldi coming in third, followed by Lidl, and Dunnes Stores.

The survey was conducted last Friday, May 12, across five major supermarkets - Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Dunnes Stores (all Cavan Town), and SuperValu (Virginia) and examined 11 grocery items (milk, bread, tea, cornflakes, butter, chocolate digestives, pasta, instant coffee, pasta sauce and a whole chicken), picking the cheapest available item in each store from the shelf, which in most cases was the supermarket’s own value brand.

The cheapest basket checked out at €14.44; while the most expensive on the day amounted to €16.10 or over 12% more expensive overall. Though it should be noted the survey did not take account of loyalty schemes and/or money-off vouchers.

Padraig McEvoy, proprietor of SuperValu, Virginia, commented: “We endeavour to keep our prices low.”

SuperValu is owned by the Musgrave group.

The survey was done after Minister of State, Neale Richmond, with special responsibility for Retail Business, gave supermarket chiefs six weeks to show a "demonstrable reduction” in prices at the checkout.