Asda expands ‘Smart Price’ range to all stores to help with cost of living crisis

Asda has announced that its Smart Price value range will be rolled out across every UK store to help with the cost of living crisis.

The supermarket’s Smart Price selection – which includes items such as a fifteen pack of eggs for £1.18, a can of peas for 21p, carrots for 20p and a 500g bag of pasta for 29p – is currently made up of 200 items, 150 of which are available in just 300 out of the 581 Asda stores.

However, Asda recently came under pressure to expand the budget range after poverty campaigner Jack Monroe highlighted how the cost of inflation is affecting financially vulnerable households across the country.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, which has since gone viral, Monroe highlighted the cost hike in a number of common supermarket items such as a bag of rice, which cost 45p for kilogram bag last year – today it’s £1 for 500g, a 344% price increase. 

Monroe also pointed out that a loaf of bread, which once cost 45p, now costs 58p, a price increase of 29%.

Her Twitter thread came after the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the consumer price index measure for inflation has increased from 5.1% in November to the highest level in nearly thirty years.

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Monroe, who started her career writing cheap recipes she’d made as a single mum, said the index measure ‘grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation’ and what it means for people in poverty.

But now, Monroe has experienced one victory in her campaign for change with Asda confirming it will be expanding the Smart Price range to all of its UK stores by March 1st. 

The supermarket has already added 100 Smart Price and Farm Stores products to its website this week, increasing the total online range to 187 products, something that will rise to 200 by the end of February.

Meg Farren, Asda’s Chief Customer Officer, credited Monroe’s campaigning to the decision, saying in a statement: “We want to help our customers’ budgets stretch further and have taken on board the comments about the availability of our Smart Price range made by Jack Monroe.

“We are taking steps to put our full Smart Price and Farm Stores ranges in store and online to make these products as accessible as possible.”

Jack Monroe has since confirmed on Twitter that ‘talks are on the table’ to implement a similar move at Sainsbury’s.