War is hell. Price wars too. It is particularly cruel when a long-planned campaign collapses at the first sign of resistance.

A few months ago the generals in Tesco Ireland sat down to finalise their autumn offensive against arch-rivals Dunnes Stores. Their secret weapon was simple: use the repeal of the Groceries Order, a device blamed for keeping grocery prices artificially high, as an excuse to announce reductions on 5,000 product lines. Then, with the opposing forces in a state of confusion and scrambling to react, hit them with plans to cut the prices of another 5,000 items in a second attack.

Supported by an advertising blitz, the campaign initially looked a bigger success than the six-day war. Tesco successfully presented itself as the consumer champ, and even Eddie Hobbs, the housewives’ favourite, advocated that everyone do their shopping there.

In reality, Tesco was treating consumers as chumps. It had raised the prices of a number of items prior to introducing the cuts. When The Sunday Times revealed this last week, it came under fire from Tesco’s public-relations stormtroopers.

When Tesco announced two weeks ago that it was reducing the price of 5,000 products, we went into our own database and looked for items previously covered by the Groceries Order that also appeared on the supermarket’s list. The 39 products common to both lists were then analysed for price movements over the past few months. The results showed that one-third of the items, everyday groceries, had been increased in price before being reduced in the promotion. We concluded that this raised questions “over the real level of savings that consumers can expect in some cases” and noted that “shoppers are now paying the same or more for the goods than they were several months ago”.

The supermarket industry is always playing with prices. A Sunday Times report in April revealed that even though the Groceries Order had been repealed on March 6, a number of popular goods had become more expensive in the six weeks following the change.

When we put last week’s findings to Tesco, it responded that the increases applied to all supermarkets, not just them. It had “now intervened to stop these increases”, boasting that it is “committed to keeping these prices down for a matter of months at least. No supermarket has cut prices on such a scale before and only Tesco is doing it now”.

So we found out that Tesco had raised its prices on certain items and then made a big palaver about cutting them. The company admitted this was the case, but argued that everybody in the industry had raised their prices and now those price increases had come to a halt. We set out the facts and Tesco was given its right of reply. Around these parts that’s considered balanced reporting.

Having published its response in full, we were a little surprised at the company’s shrill reaction when other media picked up on our story and posed the same question: how genuine are Tesco’s much-vaunted price cuts?

On Monday the Consumers’ Association of Ireland demanded that Tesco “clarify” whether or not goods in its 5,000-product campaign had been increased in price shortly before they were reduced. There was no need for clarification. Tesco admitted to us that this is precisely what happened, but, don’t forget, the price increases “applied to all supermarkets, not just Tesco”.

By Monday afternoon Tesco’s public-relations honcho was being interrogated on radio. Asked why prices had been increased, he responded that the higher prices had been imposed on the industry by suppliers. Sure. Can’t you just see “oul Mr Brennan” of the eponymous bread business (last reported operating profits: €5m) squaring up to little ol’ Tesco (last reported operating profits: €3.3 billion) and forcing it to increase the price of its 800g wholegrain loaf from €1.39 to €1.48 in April? This price rise happened the month before the Groceries Order collapsed. When Tesco reduced the loaf to €1.45 two weeks ago, it drummed up the type of fanfare associated with the discovery of a new planet.

At some stage Tesco probably realised that claiming “it was the suppliers wot made us do it” was about as convincing as the errant schoolboy claiming “the dog ate me homework”. So it decided to launch another offensive — this time against The Sunday Times. Another newspaper dutifully reported the supermarket giant’s lame accusation that our story was “utterly malicious and misleading”. Like solicitors, the length of whose letters are usually in inverse proportion to the strength of their case, Tesco is protesting too much.

At one point the company’s spokesman asked “what is The Sunday Times’s agenda?” That’s easily answered.

The government gave the supermarkets five months’ notice that the Groceries Order was being abolished. During that time the industry took the opportunity to hit the public with a series of inflationary price increases. Tesco decided to spend tens of thousands of euros in an advertising campaign to seek credit for handing back some of those extra profits.

But guys, it’s nothing personal. We’re going to do the same thing to anybody else who pulls a similar stunt.

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