This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

Two leading supermarkets are today accused of illegally misleading shoppers over their pricing of some "great value" multi-packs of groceries, which have been found to be more expensive than single versions of the food items.

The watchdog Which? looked at supermarket pricing "tricks" and found examples at Asda and Sainsbury's, it said. These had been reported to trading standards.

The offers, which may have breached trading laws, included a triple pack of Sainsbury's Naturally Sweet Sweetcorn, carrying the label "bigger pack better value", though purchase of three individual tins would have been 4p cheaper.

Sainsbury's also had a 2kg "bigger pack better value" bag of spaghetti for 27p more than two single 1kg bags. Asda was selling a 700g "great value" twin pack of Cathedral City cheese for £5.98 when two 400g packs would have been 22p cheaper.

Both supermarkets told Which? they had since corrected the prices.

Which? said data from the comparison website mySupermarket.co.uk had revealed, just on one day in August, more than 600 examples of larger packs being worse value than smaller packs.

Further examples included a £1 Hovis loaf – or £2 for two loaves; 36p for Carnation Milk – or 80p for two; and peas "reduced" from 35p – to 35p.

Peter Vicary-Smith, chief executive of Which?, advised shoppers to take so-called special offers "with a pinch of salt".

A Sainsbury's spokesman said: "We reject the accusation that we have illegally misled customers … human error occurred." Asda said "honest mistakes can happen" and "on occasion bigger packs can fall out of line [on price]".