STORE wars are being stepped up in Scarborough as families bid to keep their household budget in the black.
As disposable income falls, supermarket giants Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons are battling it out in a bid to attract town customers with money-saving deals.
However, Scarborough's local chains have vowed to stand their ground and take on the "b
ig boys" at their own game.
An Evening News survey of 15 selected items such as milk, bread, eggs, potatoes and chicken showed a total price variation of not far short of £5, varying from £18.49 to £23.25.
An 800g medium white bread loaf varied from 75p to 37p, 250g of butter varied from 95p to 85p, and 500g of cheddar cheese varied from £3.98 to £2.24.
The same weight of carrots varied by 40p from 59p to 99p and 1kg of loose new potatoes varied from 40p to £1.99.
Ian Proudfoot, joint managing director of Proudfoot, said: "By keeping competition and good service we will hold our own in the price war and will continue to compete and grow.
"We have 17 three-week promotions throughout the year in addition to our competitive pricing structure. It is our way of keeping competition going.
"And it is working. In the last week I can confidently say that our four branches in Scarborough between them are a magnificent 11.3 per cent up on last year's sales, and that is typical of us at the moment at Proudfoot."
Price-slashing follows the growing popularity of discount stores such as Aldi and Lidl, which have seen sales soar in the past year. Sandy Mitchell, area manager of Aldi in Northway, said: "The Scarborough store has been a successful store for us. Year upon year we have seen a steady growth in customers.
"In light of that growth we have seen a significant number of new customers in the last three to six months.
"It is purely down to speculation as to whether that is due to the credit crunch or not, but our customer growth is definitely increasing and is continuing to do so. We don't really compete with supermarkets.
Our prices are already generally lower as we run at a much lower cost than other major supermarket chains."
Sainsbury's has the advantage of offering discounts on fuel for total purchases of more than £50 in one transaction.
The full article contains 408 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
