Tesco Pizza Deal Price Hike Sparks Shopper Backlash
- Tesco hikes price of popular pizza meal deal by £1 — now £7 with Clubcard
- Follows increases on Finest Dine-In and ready meals
- Supermarket stays quiet as shoppers rage online
- Tesco says meal deals still “great value”
- Rival stores undercut with cheaper bundle offers
It’s a slice of bad news for Tesco fans — the price of a family favourite has quietly risen, and shoppers aren’t impressed.
Tesco has hiked the cost of its popular pizza meal deal by £1, leaving customers fuming as they spot yet another price rise on their weekly shop.
The deal, which bundles a pizza, side and dip from The Pizza Company, now costs £7 with a Clubcard — up from £6 just months ago.
Meal options include the likes of Pepperoni Party, The Big Cheese and Chicken Tikkaway, with sides like garlic bread, onion rings and chicken pops. But what was once a go-to treat night bargain is now the latest in a line of stealthy hikes.
As Harriet Cooke reported in The Sun, the pizza deal follows a string of price bumps at Tesco. Its Finest Dine-In jumped from £12 to £15 earlier this year, and the cost of two Finest ready meals crept up from £7.50 to £8.50.
Shoppers took to social media to air their frustrations. “Noticed earlier all the pizza meal deals and ready meal deals are all going up,” wrote one user online.
Tesco declined to comment on the pizza increase but previously insisted its bundles are “great value”.
Retail expert Susannah Streeter suggested the pricing pivot could be part of a wider battle plan. “It’s likely to be part of a drive to raise some prices to gain more financial firepower to lower prices on other ranges,” she said.
While Tesco keeps its Aldi Price Match promises, it’s clear certain luxuries are being repositioned to balance the books — with price wars heating up across the high street.
ASDA is offering two pizzas and a drink for just £5.98, and Sainsbury’s and M&S are dishing up bundles for £12 — though without the same dip selection.
Yet amid the backlash, Tesco has won praise for other deals, especially its revamped £3.60 lunch meal deal — which now includes a Krispy Kreme doughnut. That move alone saw shoppers calling it a “game-changer” in value.
Tom Church, Co-Founder of LatestDeals.co.uk the discount code platform said, “As prices creep up, people are laser-focused on value. That extra £1 might seem small, but in the middle of a cost-of-living squeeze it’s enough to push shoppers to look elsewhere — unless you’re adding something truly special to the deal.”
I tend to avoid the more premium products in Tesco but have got them cheap as short life discounts on occasion. Inflation is everywhere in all supermarkets not just Tesco. I always try to resist buying products that have just had a price increase in a pathetic attempt at trying to put pressure on supermarkets to stabilise prices. My Tesco is quite a large store so has a huge range of pizzas and almost always has a pizza or two on a short life discount so I would just choose a different pizza. They always seem to have some that are Aldi/Lidl price matched or in a clubcard promotion too. The other day I got a large pizza in Tesco for about 25p (short life discount) but it was a margherita which are very bland so had to add some toppings myself, I had a cooked sausage which I cut into pieces and added onion and sweetcorn. It was very nice.
A recent visit to Sainsburys had a lot of heavily discounted pizzas in a short life promotion but the freezer is a bit full at the moment and didn't fancy eating one on the same day so ignored them because of pizza's awkward size but they were about a third of the normal price.
To be honest thinking about it I can't remember the last time I paid full price for a pizza, I guess being bread based they have a short selling window.