The chief executive of Tesco Ireland Tony Keohane has denied that prices are creeping back up in stores involved in last month’s heavily-promoted price-cutting campaign.
He accepted that some prices which had been lowered as part of its overhaul had increased since in the opening weeks of the campaign but insisted that the average price falls across its 12,500 product lines were still 22 per cent and said there had "never been a price drop of this magnitude" in the Republic.
Yesterday the country's largest retailer confirmed it had increased prices on about 200 lines but said a further 300 items had fallen further in price since the new store layouts, or planograms, were introduced.
Mr Keohane was speaking this morning as Tesco Ireland reopened nine of its stores on Dublin's northside, closed since Saturday, under the new stock and pricing system.
Tesco has now rolled out its Change for Good campaign in 31 stores along the Border, in the West and in North Dublin. The rest of Tesco's 29 stores in Dublin are to follow over the next two weeks.
He said he was "delighted" with the response from shoppers to its price restructuring and once again rejected suggestions that it had led to a reduction in the number of Irish brands on Tesco shelves. "We have all the Irish products people want to buy," he said and insisted that Tesco Ireland was "committed to the Irish supply base".
Tesco has said that trade has increased by an average of 30 per cent in the stores which have rolled out the price cuts and estimates that €200 million less will be spent in the North by the Republic's shoppers when the nationwide roll out is complete at the end of August.
Mr Keohane said the Change for Good campaign was "proving good for customers, good for jobs and good for the Exchequer. The savings being made by shoppers in the Republic, as much as €50 per week, gives them more room for manoeuvre as levies and other charges take effect. It is also proving good for us and our 12,500 employees."
He said without the price reductions there would be "more leakage from the Republic at a time when the country can ill afford it and it is allowing retailers here win back trade".
