Aldi named cheapest supermarket but its lead shrinks – top 8 supermarkets ranked
Aldi has retained the title of the cheapest supermarket, but competitor Lidl has closed the gap making it the tightest race in months.
Aldi was just 25p cheaper than Lidl, but £20.01 cheaper than Waitrose, when analysing the cost of 41 popular grocery items in March.
Asda came out cheapest when investigating prices of a 'big shop' of 137 products, made up of the original 41 items plus 96 branded items such as Andrex toilet paper and Cathedral City cheese.
Aldi and Lidl were excluded from the big shop study as they do not stock many of the branded items on a regular basis.
Aldi's lead over Lidl was the smallest for several months. The smaller basket of goods, which included milk, tea bags, Heinz baked beans and own-brand fruit and vegetables, cost £72.54 at Aldi and £72.79 at Lidl.
The cheapest of the big four supermarkets for the smaller shop was Sainsbury's, costing £7.73 more than Aldi.
The same basket of goods was £92.55 in Waitrose, showing shoppers could save £20.01 if they moved from shopping in Waitrose to Aldi.
When it came to the bigger shopping list of 137 items, the shopping trolley cost £343.91 at Asda, followed by Sainsbury's which was £9.25 more. Waitrose was £41.83 more expensive than Asda.
Researchers from Which? noted the price of the same products in each supermarket every day in March. They then worked out the average trolley price. They included discounts but not multibuys or loyalty schemes.
Some supermarkets, for example Tesco, have discounts throughout its store for loyalty card members, meaning you might get better value than the study suggests if you use your loyalty card.
NimbleFins research into the average cost of food found a family of four spends on average £559 a month on food shopping, equalling £129 a week.
When looking at solo households, the average man spends £181 a month on groceries while a woman spends £138. This is just under £42 and £32 a week respectively.
NimbleFins previously reported Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Waitrose were investing millions of pounds to bring prices down as shoppers fled to discount retailers such as Aldi and Lidl.
Cheapest supermarket for basic shop
- Aldi - £72.54
- Lidl - £72.79
- Sainsbury's - £80.27
- Tesco - £81.58
- Adsa - £81.88
- Morrisons - £83.63
- Ocado - £88.03
- Waitrose - £92.55
(Analysis of 41 popular groceries)
Cheapest supermarket for bigger shop
- Asda - £343.91
- Sainsbury's - £353.16
- Morrisons - £354.87
- Tesco - £366.65
- Ocado - £371.85
- Waitrose - £385.74
(Analysis of 137 items - previous 41 plus popular brand names)
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