Now the supermarket wants the shirt off your back (to clean it)

Supermarkets, already making billions in profits, are now planning, literally, to take the shirts off our backs.

Sainsbury's is offering a new laundry service that promises to have your clothes cleaned and ironed during a weekly shop.

The store will offer a one-hour service, for which it will charge £1.99 just to iron a shirt. To have trousers or a skirt "refreshed" will cost £3.49. Whether shoppers will be able to disrobe in the store, shop in semi-nakedness and then put on clean clothes again – akin to the Levi's advert set in a launderette a decade ago – is not clear.

The scheme is being piloted at seven London stores before the UK's second-largest supermarket group decides whether to spin it out at more of its 463 outlets.

But consumer groups are concerned this latest supermarket innovation is another blow to traditional high street shops. Butchers, greengrocers and bakers have already taken a terrible blow in the past 20 years.

The National Consumer Council said yesterday: "This is just another way that supermarkets are expanding their ever-increasing services and influence. It's a further step on the road to the one-stop shop, which is going to have serious knock-on effects for smaller businesses and local communities."