Major Unilever brands such as Marmite, Hellmann’s and PG Tips will become available again via the Tesco website over the next few days after the parties settled their high-profile trading dispute yesterday.
The UK’s biggest grocery supplier issued a statement last night saying; “Unilever is pleased to confirm that the supply situation with Tesco in the UK and Ireland has now been successfully resolved.
“We have been working together closely to reach this resolution and ensure our much-loved brands are once again fully available. For all those that missed us, thanks for all the love.”
A Tesco spokesman said: “We always put our customers first and we’re pleased this situation has been resolved to our satisfaction.”
The dispute became public on Wednesday, with Tesco understood to have refused to accept Unilever’s demand for a blanket 10% price increase across many of its brands, which it claimed was necessary to compensate for the major drop in the value of sterling since the UK voted to leave the EU in June.
It is thought that the latest agreement between Unilever and Tesco came about after the supplier conceded some ground from its original negotiating position.
The Grocer understands that Unilever was asking for the same increases across all the major UK supermarkets who have also looked to resist the demands.
“We are agents of our customers and therefore any supplier price needs to be challenged,” said one supermarket CEO.
“Unilever, who are very profitable, are effectively transferring the currency risk to us. They have resisted putting prices down when the market was going the other way, but they can’t have it both ways.
“We would not choose to have quite such as public spat but inevitably the biggest lever we and Tesco have is to refuse the increase and by default stop selling their products.”
He added: “There are more long-term profound implications but that can be saved for another day. Welcome to Brexit Britain.”
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