What a difference a month makes. In April, Tesco admitted its customers perceived it as lagging behind other mults on promotions. One month on, it has revved up its deals engine and managed to catch up with its big four rivals.

The retailer increased the number of featured space promotions in its stores by 30% to 1,734 in the four weeks to 13 May, putting it within touching distance of Sainsbury’s - which remained flat at 1,742 deals - and ahead of Asda, which cut promotions by 14.6% month-on-month to 1,701, and Morrisons, which increased promos by 5.7% to 1,713.

With no update to its Big Price Drop push in last month’s City update, it seems deals are the chosen route to salvation for Tesco: it previously ranked a distant fourth of the big four, with 17% fewer deals than third-placed Morrisons.

Tesco also pulled out all the stops to offer eye-catching half-price deals - just over half (51.7%) of its promotions this month offered a 50% saving, up from 41.5% last month. By comparison, Morrisons offered half-price savings on 41% of its deals, with Sainsbury’s offering them on 16.4%, Waitrose on 13.7% and Asda on 4.1%.

After pledging to match Tesco on the price of branded products - excluding promotions, of course - Waitrose showed no signs of wanting to catch its benchmarked rival. It ran 848 deals - just half the number Tesco ran. The typical depth of cut at Waitrose was lower, too, at 32.8%, versus 38.3% at Tesco. In percentage terms, Asda offered the smallest saving, but the average starting price of products on deal was 47p lower than its closest rival, Morrisons, and 92p cheaper than Tesco.

All the supermarkets increased the proportion of branded promos they ran compared with own label. A year ago, a quarter of all promotions at Asda were for own-label products now it’s 14%.

At a category level, Waitrose has made the most changes since last year. It scaled back on BWS promos, down from 39% to 29.7% yoy. As well as offering 33% off all fresh produce lines earlier this month it ran more impulse, household, grocery and health & beauty promos. It also matched Tesco on 7,000 branded lines, of course - except on promotions, so it doesn’t count.

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