ASDA and Sainsbury’s have denied deliberately misleading shoppers after discrepancies were discovered in the pricing of products promoted as “big value” packs.

Instead of being more cost effective, watchdogs came across smaller versions of the same products which were actually better value for money.

The supermarkets insist that the anomalies were down to human error and have amended their prices after the whistle was blown.

But this is not a case of small-scale, localised errors. This was a wideranging investigation by Which? and backed up by research carried out by the Office of Fair Trading. Misleading pricing was discovered in supermarkets across the country.

We all make mistakes, of course, but the suspicions of shoppers will inevitably remain because of the impersonal nature of supermarkets.

They have become so big and so powerful that there can never be the same level of trust that consumers enjoy with their local corner shops.

The problem, of course, is that there are fewer and fewer corner shops because they cannot compete with the might of the supermarkets. And it is because of that power that the pricing policies of the national chains should be placed under this kind of independent scrutiny.

Whether these were genuine mistakes or attempts to pull a fast one, the message to shoppers is clear – that special offers on the supermarket shelves are not always what they seem.

And the message to supermarkets is just as clear – that greater care has to be taken to make sure that pricing claims are accurate.