A former Tesco worker who worked there for four years has shared the best times of day to find yellow sticker deals and reduced items
I worked at Tesco for four years and would often be tasked with reducing fresh items(Image: EXPRESS)
Having spent four years on the shop floor at Tesco, I was regularly asked to mark down fresh produce as closing time approached. But Tesco isn’t the only supermarket that does this. Rival supermarkets such as Asda, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, and Morrisons also cut prices on stock throughout the day. These are typically products nearing their best-before date or lines being discontinued.
Most supermarkets have a clearance area in their fresh food sections, either clearly signposted or filled with yellow-stickered items. The setup differs between individual branches.
During my time at Tesco, I saw ready meals, milk, bread, cream doughnuts, salads, sushi, and sandwiches all marked down before the end of the day. But when should shoppers look for these deals?
What time of day does Tesco reduce its food items?
Markdown times vary across branches and depend on factors such as how busy the store is and staffing levels on any given day.
I worked at both a seasonal store — busy in summer but quiet in winter — and a busy central London branch.
While we had target times for starting reductions, busy trading periods sometimes pushed us off schedule.
If you’re not sure when your nearest branch does its markdowns, just ask a member of staff. Most of the products I reduced were fresh goods, including milk, bread, ready meals and salad bags, though occasionally you’d find larger cuts of meat, fish and even items from the Tesco Finest range.
Most of these products were marked down because they were reaching their use-by date that day, though that doesn’t mean they need to be eaten straight away. Many items, particularly bread and milk, can be frozen.
At Tesco, there were three rounds of reductions starting around 9am/10am, during which some products were marked down by 10%.
Items would then be discounted further by 30%, 50%, and sometimes as much as 90% later in the day.
One of the best times to visit is in the evening, between 6pm and 8pm, when the final markdowns are applied.
The later you shop, the bigger the discount you’re likely to find. That said, don’t leave it too late — at busy stores, the best bargains go quickly.
Last year, Tesco launched a new round of reductions at 7pm to cut food waste.
A Tesco spokesperson previously told Express.co.uk that while the markdown typically happens around 7pm, it can vary between stores, saying: “Markdowns on fresh products continue to be popular and help to prevent good food from going to waste.”
