Asda and Sainsbury are both threatening to report Tesco to the Advertising Standards Authority over its claims to be the Best Value Supermarket'. Tesco is standing by claims made in its latest ad campaign that it is on average 8% cheaper than Sainsbury on 8,000 goods, and insisted the Best Value' slogan could be substantiated for the period in August on which the ad claims were based. The chain also dismissed Sir Peter Davis' suggestion that the sample was unrepresentative: "We're not just cutting prices on Yugoslavian mustard and bootlaces," said a spokesman. "The claims we make are based on products representing over 60% of a typical shopping trip." He rubbished reports Tesco had cut prices on 134 lines out of a representative sample of 2,000 products but raised prices on another 74 lines in the first week of its campaign. "This is total nonsense," said the spokesman. "Of course prices go up when promotions end, or say, flour prices go up, but these figures are just plain wrong." Suggestions that Tesco is putting the squeeze on suppliers to fund the cuts were also rejected. "Every retailer's price cuts are funded by suppliers to a certain extent," said the spokesman. "It's a virtuous circle. The cuts drive volume, which in turn benefits the supplier." He said Tesco prices were "very close indeed" to Asda's, but added: "When we say we're the Best Value supermarket, we're also talking about quality." Asda was so incensed by Tesco's use of the phrase it was also considering taking the matter up with the ASA as The Grocer went to press. It was "significant" that Tesco's PoS material trumpeting its good value did not compare its prices to Asda's, said a spokeswoman. "We are consistently cheaper than all our competitors week in, week out, year in year out, based on an average shopping basket of goods that are in The Grocer 33 survey." The ASA said it had not received any complaints about the ad to date. {{NEWS }}

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