A new study by communications agency Southpaw suggests that consumers are buying less household name grocery brands because they are “too expensive, outdated and boring”.

1,000 consumers were asked which brands they buy less frequently now than they did five years ago, or have even stopped purchasing altogether. The top 10 included Cadbury’s, Birds Eye, Heinz, Coca-Cola, PG Tips, and Kingsmill.

Shoppers were asked to choose from a list of words they felt best described the products they now spend less on. The word most commonly associated with these brands was ‘expensive’ with ‘outdated’ and even ‘boring’ being given as reasons.

Tom Poynter, group managing director at Southpaw, said: “There is a warning sign in the results of our survey for some well-known brands. The theme of the responses is that people believe the products they buy less of are expensive. Even if that isn’t actually the case, there is a key marketing issue at the heart of these findings: the brand isn’t justifying the product cost.

“This is something all marketers need to be aware of. Sustaining the price point is a critical job of any brand and that clearly isn’t happening here. There’s work to be done on refreshing the brands in question, in order to change perceptions and help improve sales performance.”