Co-op gives away free pasta sauce and coffee by mistake

A suspected glitch on Thursday evening saw some Co-op product prices reduced by as much as 100% on the delivery app Deliveroo.

The pricing error allowed some shoppers to get products – including jars of Loyd Grossman pasta sauce, Costa ground coffee and Fox’s cookies – for free.

Whether a retailer has to honour purchases of products advertising lower prices in error can depend on their terms and conditions.

But the BBC spoke to several people who were able to take advantage of the Co-op’s reduced items on Deliveroo, such as Robinsons squash being discounted from £1.50 to 15p a bottle.

A Co-op spokesperson said the low prices were the result of “a clerical error”.

“A small number of prices were showing incorrectly on our Deliveroo shop for a few hours last night,” they said.

“This was quickly resolved, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

Peter, who lives in Lancashire, told the BBC the “incredible offer” allowed him to get more than £80 worth of goods for just £3.29 – including delivery fees.

“I was surprised the Co-op and Deliveroo honoured and delivered the mispriced items,” he said.

He said he will be donating most of the items to his local food bank “who desperately need non-perishable food for people in my community”.

It was recently revealed that, like Marks and Spencer, the Co-op has been affected by a cyber attack.

The firm shut down parts of its IT systems in response to hackers attempting to gain access.

There is no suggestion this issue and the attempted cyber attack are linked.

A Deliveroo spokesperson confirmed the pricing error.

“Yesterday we experienced a brief temporary issue involving items in a promotional campaign with one partner being priced incorrectly,” they said.

Meanwhile, Sally Marie from Bolton said like many who bought discounted goods on Thursday evening, she found out about it from a website which called it a “glitch”.

“I was sat on the sofa and thought I’d give it a go before the Co-op ran out of stock,” she said.

“I quickly installed Deliveroo, and to my surprise, I found some items priced at zero.”

Her order arrived just 15 minutes later.

People also posted evidence of their low-priced purchases from the Co-op’s Deliveroo service on social media.

“Got myself a lot of cheap bits from the Co-op,” said one user in a post on X.

“15p Robinsons squash will do well with the heat wave.”

Meanwhile on Instagram, one user said they found other products heavily discounted, with Airwick Reed Diffusers selling for £5.45 less than their regular price.

He told the BBC that the prices returned to normal within 45 minutes of him ordering and receiving his items via Deliveroo.

According to Citizen’s Advice, your rights when shopping for an item online that has been discounted in a pricing error can depend on a store’s terms and conditions.

These may only give the consumer legal rights once they have either placed the order or received it.

It adds that when buying in a shop, you should not have to give back an item or pay more for it if they sold it to you at a lower cost than they meant to – unless you discussed the price first but they ended up charging you less.

Many retailers tend to uphold pricing errors for products.

In 2022, a pricing mistake for copies of Fifa 23 Ultimate Edition on India’s Epic Games store allowed some to buy the game for 4.80 rupees ($0.06; £0.05).

Its publisher Electronic Arts (EA) said it would honour games purchased at its erroneous 99% discount.