Anybody who thinks there isn’t intense competition among the big grocers only needed to watch Sainsbury’s and Tesco go at it hammer and tongs this week.

Anybody who thinks there isn’t intense competition among the big grocers only needed to watch Sainsbury’s and Tesco go at it hammer and tongs this week.

The pair fell out over an Advertising Standards Authority decision on Tesco’s Price Promise, prompting a war of words and a JS ad campaign fighting its corner.

Price competitiveness remains at the heart of supermarketing. But perhaps the most interesting thing at present is that shoppers are so confident of value at all the grocers that competition is consequently moving up a gear on terrain such as provenance, quality and service.

There is no complacency among the grocers when it comes to ferocity of competition, which their critics should surely acknowledge.