Chart reveals the exact time supermarkets reduce their items

Bright yellow, the size of a credit card and so beautiful that they could actually elicit joyful tears. No, not Bart Simpson’s palms, rather the mythical ‘Reduced to clear’ sticker that adorns food at a supermarket, in the hours before it might make a trip to the big waste compactor in the sky.

We don’t care whether your bank balance is one that would make a Nigerian scamster weep or salivate, there is not a human alive that doesn’t receive an adrenaline jolt upon seeing a whole roast chicken reduced from £7.99 to a cool 25p.

Ok sure, that same chicken goes off sooner than you can cook it and you did have chicken for tea yesterday but, for 25 pence, you’ll be having eight of the buggers in your trolley, thanks very much.

And while a basket full of marked down items has long since symbolised the big-shop equivalent of a EuroMillions jackpot to a generation of students the outright stingy, the precise time that the reduction-gun-of-hope is drawn from its holster has remained shrouded in mystery.

Until now.

Those prudent types at MoneySavingExpert have cracked the yellow sticker code of ASDA, Co-Op, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, with some pretty revealing – and alluring – stats.

Tesco and Co-Op, for example, begin the discount extravaganza as early as 8am. Sleepy students may not spring out of bed at such news, mind, as you can only expect a maximum of 25% off. Four PM is when Tesco’s reductions hit 50% – the remaining supermarkets following suit at five – with Co-Op and Morrisons first to plummet their prices to 75% off, around 7pm.

The full chart is below, in all it’s pound-saving glory. Now print, place in your wallet – you know, in that space where notes once went – and run to your nearest Morrisons, just as soon as your clock strikes 8.

(Pic: Rex)