The supermarket confirmed the limit was a temporary measure to help ensure as many people as possible can benefit from its budget range.

As such, shoppers can buy a maximum of three of each Just Essentials product – its low-cost range launched this summer to replace its previous Asda Smart Price offering.

The limit applies to all 632 Asda stores as well as online.

A spokesperson, said: “Just Essentials is proving really popular at the moment and we’re working hard to get the out of stock products back on the shelves as quickly as we can.

“To make sure as many customers as possible can buy these products we are temporarily limiting purchases to a maximum of three of each product. This will be for a short period, and we will let you know as soon as these limits are removed. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.”

Price pledge on rising budget food costs

The Just Essentials by Asda range was launched in stores from early June. When fully rolled out, it will include 300 products – 50% more than the Smart Price items it is replacing.

The products run across fresh meat, fish, poultry, bakery, frozen, cupboard staples as well as household and toiletry items.

Back in March when it announced the range, it said it wanted to keep households running on a budget and to help millions of families fight rising living costs.

It also followed Asda’s cheap food promise to make its cheapest food range more widely available after comments made about price inflation by poverty campaigner and food blogger Jack Monroe.

She found several supermarkets had removed or reduced their cheapest food ranges or were selling smaller quantities for higher prices. Monroe revealed the Smart Price pasta had risen from 29p for 500g to 70p – a 141% price rise.

Meanwhile, experimental figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published in May revealed the lowest cost pasta had risen by 50% in the year to April, while basic bread was up 16% and rice 15%. Of the 30 basic grocery items it tracked, five increased by 15% or more while for 10 of the 30 items, they increased by more than 10%.