EXCLUSIVE: The cost of living crisis continues to hit Brits hard, but one simple supermarket crouching trick from Martin Lewis’ Money Saving Expert website could help slash your weekly Asda shop and save you over £17 on branded versus own-brand items
Although food inflation – the rate at which food prices rise – has slowed recently, the cost of living remains a pressing concern. Brits have been battered by multiple once-in-a-generation economic shocks in recent years that have driven up their living costs.
These include the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit, the war in Ukraine, and the US-Iran War.
Yet, there are several tricks out there that many reckon can trim a few quid off your weekly shop. One of these might be simply crouching down.
While crouching and squatting make excellent gym exercises, they could also help you save cash in a supermarket aisle.
What is the crouching trick in supermarkets?
Back in 2017, consumer experts at Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert site put forward the theory that supermarkets position pricier items at a customer’s eye level, making them more likely to be purchased. Meanwhile, cheaper, own-brand products sit further down the shelf – forcing shoppers to crouch down to spot them.
They tested it themselves across three different supermarkets and concluded: “We found supermarkets place own brand items down on the bottom shelf, often positioned in the bottom left hand corner of the display.”
But does this still ring true? I headed down to my local Asda to find out.
Testing crouching hack in Asda
To get a proper picture, I selected 10 everyday items and compared the prices of branded products with Asda’s own-brand alternatives, as well as their shelf positions. The items in question were instant coffee, Greek yoghurt, linguine pasta, pasta sauce, mayonnaise, ketchup, marmalade, flour, almond milk, bread; the prices for which can be found below.
Out of the 10 items, I had to bend down to locate four of the branded alternatives. The Asda Greek yoghurt was positioned closer to the floor compared to the Fage equivalent.
The same was true for the Asda pasta sauce versus the Dolmio equivalent, the Asda ketchup verses Heinz’s own product and Asda’s almond milk verses the same drink from Alpro.
There were certain items where I had to crouch for both options. This included both Asda and Hellmann’s mayonnaises, Asda and Golden Shreds’ marmalades as well as Asda and Be-Ro’s plain flours and Asda’s own-brand coffee alongside the Nescafe equivalent.
In the case of the mayonnaise and marmalade, both were on the lowest shelf.
Meanwhile, for the pasta and bread I didn’t need to crouch for either. The bread was flanked by rival branded loaves with just one positioned above it.
As for the pasta, the Asda own-brand items were placed a level higher to the left of the Napolina branded linguine.
How much did I save?
While I may not have needed to crouch for every item, the savings made by sticking to Martin Lewis’ own-brand principle were remarkable. Adding everything together, my own-brand shop came to just £11.26 compared to the £28 I’d have spent had I opted for the branded alternatives.
That’s a saving of £17.22. The complete line-up was as follows:
- Nescafe Instant Coffee (£6) vs Asda Instant Coffee (£2.28)
- Fage Greek Yoghurt (£3.65) vs Asda Greek Yoghurt (£1.70)
- Napolina Linguine (£1.57) vs Asda linguine (80p)
- Dolmio pasta sauce (£2.59) vs Asda pasta sauce (69p)
- Hellman’s mayonnaise (£3.25) vs Asda mayonnaise (93p)
- Heinz ketchup (£4.70) vs Asda ketchup (£1.35)
- Golden Shred marmalade (£1.90) vs Asda marmalade (85p)
- Be-Ro flour (£1.97) vs Asda flour (70p)
- Alpro almond milk (£1.62) vs Asda almond milk (£1.41)
- Kingsmill bread (£1.25) vs Asda white bread (55p)
