LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's fourth-largest supermarket operator Morrisons (>> WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC) on Sunday said it was cutting the price of more than 1,000 products, with an average drop of 19 percent across fruit and vegetable lines.

The firm said it was launching a rolling programme of reductions that will see the price of selected items cut for a minimum of three months. Morrisons said it would use it own fresh food manufacturing business to help keep prices down.

The announcement of discounts come as the country's four main supermarkets, Asda (>> Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.), Tesco (>> Tesco PLC), Sainsbury's (>> J Sainsbury plc) and Morrisons battle to stem a loss of customers to discounters Aldi and Lidl .

Earlier this month, Morrisons posted a surprise rise in sales over the festive period, ending three years of declines.

(Reporting by William James, editing by Louise Heavens)