TV’s money-saving expert Martin Lewis is helping YOU to Beat the Crunch every Saturday in the Bolton Evening News this month.

BRITS are facing a kitchen nightmare. Mammoth food price inflation means the cost of filling a trolley with food for your family has increased by £750 in the last year and no end is in sight.

Yet, if you know what you’re doing, it is possible to save thousands of pounds annually.

Just remember that a supermarket is a “cathedral of consumerism”. Everything about the place is designed to improve its profitability by targeting our impulse to spend more money and buy more food.

Yet you can win by turning these marketing techniques on their head. The powerhouse savings come from “downshifting”. This is a technique I developed a number of years ago that has proved itself time and again. My “Downshift Challenge” is designed to let you take advantage and save cash without noticing the difference.

When you go to a supermarket you will normally find four brand levels. These are Premium Brand, like Tesco Finest, normal brand, like Heinz Spaghetti, the supermarket’s own-brand and basics or savers brands.

The challenge is to try buying each item at one brand lower than normal. For example, if you usually buy Branston Baked Beans, pick up the supermarket’s own-brand. If you buy top-of-the range ice cream, try a brand name instead, or if you already buy the supermarket’s own-brand, choose Basics.

The impact on your shopping bill is amazing. Having studied this using a sample of 400 goods, the average cost reduction you’ll make by downshifting just one brand level is 33 per cent. On a family shop of £100 per week, it adds up to a saving of £1,700 a year.