Supermarket fuel prices: Industry insider says always do this one thing before filling up your tank

Allman claimed DA Roberts customers travelled as many as 20 miles and still made a saving.

Speaking to the 5Live, he said: “Locally we’ve got a couple of garages near us that aren’t much more expensive than us, I think with our prices bringing down the prices locally, so they are only four or five pence more than us but we have customers travelling 20 miles because its 25 pence, 26 pence cheaper.”

Explaining why DA Roberts can offer lower prices at the pump, Allman added: “Our prices change on a daily basis and we receive an email with the price we are going to be buying the fuel at, we add our set margin that we want to cover our costs and make a bit of money and then that’s what determines our pump prices.

“We don’t look at other garages or anything like that, we just do our own thing.”

Wholesale petrol and diesel prices have fallen in recent months, with DA Roberts now selling the heavy oil at a lower rate than crude.

Allman voiced concern about how prices at larger retailers remain so high, claiming: “Historically, we have always been pretty similar to supermarket prices.”

He added: “Some garages are on different pricing mechanisms, they could be on a weekly average pricer, but the amount that fuel has fallen and consistently fallen there is no way we are buying it 20 pence cheaper.”

The Grindley Brook garage currently sells diesel at 131.9 pence per litre and petrol at 136.9 pence per litre.

Research by the RAC revealed that average petrol prices including VAT currently stand at 146.89 pence per litre, down from 187.01 pence per litre last summer.

However, the wholesale price of petrol per litre is as low as 116.50 pence per litre.

Diesel prices including VAT have dropped from its 199.07 pence per litre peak to 161.06 pence per litre but the wholesale price is now as low as 112.30 pence per litre.

Allman’s comments come as a competition watchdog looks set to quiz supermarket bosses after revealing retailers have increased fuel prices to unnecessarily high levels.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) claimed average 2022 supermarket pump prices were around five pence per litre more expensive than they would have been if supermarkets maintained their average margins at 2019 levels.

CMA confirmed its intention to ramp up efforts to ensure grocery sector prices are not higher than they should be amid soaring food inflation and the cost-of-living crisis.

The watchdog also warned high prices at the pump could not be solely blamed on global factors, including Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Sarah Cardell, the chief executive of the CMA, said: “The rising cost of living is putting people and businesses under sustained financial pressure.

“The CMA is determined to do what it can to ensure competition helps contain these pressures as much as possible.

“Although much of the pressure on pump prices is down to global factors including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have found evidence that suggests weakening retail competition is contributing to higher prices for drivers at the pumps.

“We are also concerned about the sustained higher margins on diesel compared with petrol we have seen this year.

“We are not satisfied that all the supermarkets have been sufficiently forthcoming with the evidence they have provided in our road fuel market study, so we will be calling them in for formal interviews to get to the bottom of what is going on.”

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney said it was shocking that there was evidence of at least one company inflating prices to “profiteer off the cost-of-living crisis”.

The Richmond Park MP added: “This supermarket must be named and shamed.

“The Government has completely failed to bring down prices and have been ignoring allegations of profiteering for far too long.”