Supermarkets could come under pressure to change their printed labels after being criticised by Which?
The consumer organisation carried out a survey and found that only half of people find it easy to compare unit prices of goods to discover which is the cheapest.
It sent undercover shoppers into various stores and discovered that they are often making unit prices unclear, sometimes by using inconsistent measurements on identical products depending on whether they are in multipacks or loose.
For example, some items had the price per 100g, others had price per kilo and loose items were listed by price per single unit or a combined total for three.
Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: "We want to see retailers and the government make urgent improvements so that consumers can compare like-for-like in the supermarket."
He called for shops to make their prices prominent and easy to read on peelable labels, as well as consistent.
This comes after health minister for Ireland James Reilly said brands are being misleading by displaying calorie information for products of a certain size, but them selling them in multiples that are bigger than this measurement.
Denny Bros Ltd, 18 November 2011
