An online price-tracking website monitoring price fluctuations across six major UK online supermarkets says Asda is the cheapest option for Brits grappling with the cost of living crisis.
After analysing prices across all of the six supermarkets, research by Alertr shows Asda is the least expensive for the consumer weekly shop and by a fair amount - a whopping £21.79 cheaper than Waitrose, which is the most expensive supermarket currently being tracked.
Tesco offered the second most affordable shop for three out of the four weeks of analysis. There was just a 34p average basket cost difference between them and Morrisons.
Although Morrisons offered the second cheapest basket shop for the first week of the month at £124.56, their average basket value went up by £1.91 to £126.47 in week two. Their costs continued to increase for the remainder of August, while Tesco’s lowered.
Least affordable supermarkets right now
Ocado and Waitrose continued to compete to not be named the least affordable of the largest supermarkets being tracked – with a considerable price difference of £9.02 this time around. Waitrose’s basket costs were the priciest throughout the whole of July and they subsequently retained their title as the most expensive supermarket for the third month running.
All supermarket basket prices increased when compared to last month - except for Ocado, which decreased by £5.37. This did not do much to help Ocado overall as the brand still came in as the second most expensive supermarket to shop with.
Looking into price changes across the board, the price of alcohol, including gin, vodka and beer, fluctuated throughout the month across all six supermarkets. Gin and vodka at Morrisons and Asda started the month at £14.
However, for the last two weeks of the month when various popular UK musical festivals took place, including Reading and Leeds Festivals and Creamfields, both Morrisons and Asda increased their gin and vodka prices by almost 20% to £16.
Likewise, a pack of four beers at Asda cost just £4 during the first week of July. This increased by 60p to £4.60 for the August bank holiday weekend.
The price of crisps and bread also increased towards the end of the month for all supermarkets, as parents shopped for lunchbox items ahead of the kids going back to school. The price of Walkers Classic Variety Multipack Crisps at both Morrisons and Sainsbury’s went up by 50p at the end of the month from £2.25 to £2.75.
Additionally, the price of an 800g Soft White Medium Sliced loaf of bread and an 800g Medium Wholemeal loaf of bread at Asda and Morrisons increased by 10p, from 70p to 80p in the last week of August.
Andy Barr, co-founder of Alertr, said: “For the weekly shop, as it currently stands, there’s still a stark difference between the top and bottom spots on the leader board of almost £22, which has increased incrementally from last month.
"Throughout the year so far, we’ve seen much less disparity across the rest of the board, especially between those supermarkets placing second, third and fourth on a regular basis – Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsburys.
"However, this hasn’t been the case for August, with an increased price difference of £1.78 between Tesco and Morrisons, and an even greater price difference of £4.20 between Morrisons and Sainsbury’s this time round. This shows that the top four supermarkets aren’t competing as closely as they were before.
Barr says it will be "interesting" to see how the battle of the supermarkets will play out over the next few months. He added: "With the cost-of-living crisis squeezing household incomes more than ever, especially as we head into autumn and winter, who knows if this will impact consumer habits.
"On top of this, the October price cap increase will inevitably cause many families to look harder at their expenses each month, so it’ll certainly be telling how supermarkets react to this and if product prices increase in line with suspected further inflation rate rises.”
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, such as Coca-Cola, and Kellogg’s Cornflakes.
The full breakdown of each supermarket’s current basket costs are as follows:
1. Asda – £117.85 (+51p compared to last month’s findings)
2. Tesco – £125.18 (+£1.26)
3. Morrisons – £125.52 (+£2.12)
4. Sainsbury’s – £127.60 (+£2.70)
5. Ocado – £130.62 (-£5.37)
6. Waitrose – £139.64 (+£2.51)
