You can take the man out of Morrisons, it seems, but you can’t take the Morrisons out of the man.

As chief executive of the Bradford-based chain, Marc Bolland was used to trading blows with Tesco. And despite slipping into the more rarefied air at Marks & Spencer, he was at it again today.

In one breath Bolland was trumpeting the “return to quality” that’s helped boost like-for-like food sales by 3.7%. But in the next, he was selling the retailer’s value credentials.

“At the moment, our food pricing is competitive with anyone in the market,” he said.

“We have 400 non-M&S brands in-store with pricing in line with Tesco. We have 1,200 lines that are comparable to the nearest competitor, if not cheaper. Another 5,000 products are specific to M&S.”

Of course, M&S isn’t alone in taking its lead from Tesco. And Tesco isn’t the real target of this pricing strategy.

It’s no coincidence Bolland made this new pitch just a couple of weeks after Waitrose started price-matching 1,000 best-selling brands against the UK’s largest grocer.

As we reported last week, Mark Price is gambling that the £26m hit the business expects from squeezed margins will be offset by more shoppers and bigger baskets from existing customers.

Ocado already matches 5,000 lines against Tesco and, with Sainsbury’s yesterday buzzing back into gear, M&S needed to hit back.

Today’s numbers are very positive for M&S. But more noteworthy still was Bolland’s emphasis on price.

As Kay Stanilard of Associa observes: “The big four have been steadily increasing their premium own-label offerings and, as such, are directly targeting Waitrose and M&S.

“It would seem a natural step for them to start playing the game of price-matching on key branded lines and, while Asda is often cheapest, Tesco would seem a more favourable choice.”

The Bolland era began in earnest today.

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