ASDA retains title as UK’s cheapest online supermarket for 11th month – £17.33 cheaper than Waitrose for Government’s Consumer Price Index ‘Shopping Basket’
An online price-tracking website that’s constantly monitoring price increases and decreases across six major UK online supermarkets can now reveal that Asda has retained its title as the least expensive option for British consumers looking to keep their grocery costs down right now.
The results have been determined by carefully tracking how each online retailer prices the 42 items outlined in the Government’s Consumer Price Index ‘shopping basket’ on a week-by-week basis by the team at www.alertr.co.uk. The latest research found that Asda is still the reigning champion – found to be the most affordable supermarket right now, with Morrisons coming in second, ending Tesco’s two-month spell as runner-up, with an average current basket cost of £116.36 (£4.68 more expensive than Asda).
Looking into prices across all of the six supermarkets, Asda was revealed as the least expensive for the consumer weekly shop by a fair amount; found to be £17.33 cheaper than Waitrose – the most expensive supermarket right now.
Asda was also found to be the overall cheapest supermarket for the month of February (with an average basket cost of £112.68), offering the most affordable basket shop for all four weeks of analysis. Both Morrisons and Tesco fought for a close second throughout the month, but Tesco ended February with a basket spend of £117.31, followed by Morrisons whose basket went up by £5.69 from £112.27 in week three to £117.96 in week four.
Looking into price changes across the board, chocolate at both Sainsbury’s and Morrisons started the month at £2.50 and then, for the remaining week of February, increased by £50p to £3 at Morrisons and went up to £4 at Sainsbury’s, with the six-week celebration of Lent ongoing.
In terms of fruit and vegetables, Tesco has come out on top as the cheapest supermarket for items such as bananas, apples, peas and carrots – all below the cost of £1.50. For broccoli however, Morrisons and Ocado were the cheapest of all supermarkets, both selling at 46p. Tesco and Asda followed very closely behind at 49p and 50p respectively.
For the essentials, such as bread and milk, Sainsburys was the cheapest supermarket, surpassing Asda from last month – with Asda coming in a close second, followed by Morrisons and Tesco. The cost of milk is 95p across all six stores, and for bread the cost bracket is between 55p and 65p.
Morrisons was revealed as the cheapest supermarket for alcoholic items, followed closely by Asda, with an overall price difference of £4.25. Morrisons is currently selling Gin and Vodka for £13 each, compared to the likes of Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Ocado who are all selling the same drinks for £15.50. For Beers specifically, Morrisons and Ocado are the cheapest, selling at just £4.25 per four pack, compared to nearly all other supermarkets selling at £4.50+.
Andy Barr, co-founder of www.alertr.co.uk, said:
“For the weekly shop right now, there’s a pretty stark difference between the top and bottom spots on the leader board of almost £18. However, there’s much less disparity across the rest of the board, especially between the top three supermarkets – Asda, Morrisons and Tesco – so it’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds over the next few months. Tesco have failed to retain second place after a two-month long reign, with an average basket price difference of just 51p between them and Morrisons. Ocado and Waitrose have continued to compete with each other to not be named the most expensive of the largest supermarkets – with a greater price difference of £3.09 between them this time around. With Lent ongoing right now, the prices of moreish items like chocolate are fluctuating and the battle for supermarkets to offer the best deals to their shoppers is only going to ramp up a notch as Easter approaches.”
The online price-tracking website has been tracking the prices of 42 everyday items from the shopping basket on the Office for National Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI) since 2019. Included within the list are items such as eggs, milk and bread, as well as non-perishables such as pasta, rice and cereal. The prices across six of the largest supermarkets are analysed, with discount retailers Lidl and Aldi not included due to the inability for customers to shop full ranges online and not having the same like-for-like branded products that other supermarkets stock.
Own-brand items (or their equivalent) were monitored in the research to give the most unbiased comparison of goods and their prices, with the exception of branded items that all six supermarkets stocked (e.g., Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s Cornflakes, etc.).
The full breakdown of each supermarket’s current basket costs are as follows:
- ASDA – £112.68 (£2.82 more than last month)
- Morrisons – £116.36 (£3.27 less than last month)
- Tesco – £116.87 (£1.24 more than last month)
- Sainsbury’s – £118.77 (£1.15 more than last month)
- Ocado – £126.92 (97p less than last month)
- Waitrose – £130.01 (£1.27 more than last month)
To ensure the results across the stores are fair, if an item is unavailable or out of stock in one of the six online stores then the product is dismissed entirely and not analysed within the final costs of all stores. Items can also be replaced with another like-for-like item, as long as it is in stock across all six retailers. However, for this current basket, no products that were being tracked had to be swapped or were out of stock.
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