Tesco pulls Heineken beers in apparent price row

Tesco has reportedly removed Heineken beers and ciders from its shelves in an apparent pricing row that echoes its spat with Marmite owner, Unilever last summer.

Eight brands including Tiger, Sol and Amstel have reportedly already been taken off the retailers’ shelves, according to trade publication The Grocer, in what appears to be a pricing row that echoes Tesco’s spat with Marmite’s owner Unilever last summer.

Heineken has already raised prices on its beer in the on-trade by around 6p per pint, a move that was announced in January, reportedly blaming the budget and Brexit vote for rising costs, and although it has not confirmed whether it will raise pricing, The Grocers’ analysis of data from supermarket price and promotion tracking company BrandView reveals the price on Heineken brands has already risen 7% year on year, compared to comparable products.

Yesterday the ONS released its consumer price index (CPI) for February that showed that although alcoholic drinks had seen flat growth since January, with deflation of 0.2%, beer prices had increased by 2.3% year-on-year.

In total, eight skus have been pulled from Tesco’s shelves entirely, with 24 lines affected in total, as the retailer will stop selling large format pack sizes of brands such as Heineken, Fosters and Newcastle Brown Ale and Strongbow.

However a Tesco spokesman was said to have insisted the change was part of a normal range review that better reflected consumer demand. It is understood it will make room for more craft beers and ciders across its larger format stores, following a move in October to boost craft beer across its Express convenience stores. The move intended to tap into the rising trend for craft beer, which Tesco’s buying manager for beer Peter Bexton said at the time was the UK’s fastest growing drinks trend.

In October 2015, Tesco rolled out its ‘Project Reset’ in stores, which slashed up to 30% of its product lines including removing 27% of its wines, to around 660 skus, and lowering the price of many in the range.

A Heineken spokesman said it did not want to comment on commercial arrangements with its customers, adding that “shoppers will continue to find a broad range of our fantastic beer and cider brands in Tesco.”