“While there is little doubt that prices in a multiple supermarket are a good deal cheaper than in a corner grocer, among the multiples as a whole prices are remarkably similar, sometimes identical. Competition seems to be confined to price cuts on a few items,” says Spencer Henson, lecturer in food economics at Reading University, in a chapter on food retailing in Your Food: Whose Choice?, edited by the National Consumer Council and published recently by HMSO, price £10.95p.