The cheapest supermarket for an online shop has been revealed as Asda, where a (virtual) trolley-full of groceries will set you back £117.34, while Morrisons came second with a current average basket cost of £123.40.
Alertr analysed prices online in July across all of the six supermarkets, Asda was revealed as the least expensive for the consumer weekly shop, a whole £19.79 cheaper than Waitrose – the most expensive supermarket currently being tracked. For clarity, Aldi and Lidl were not included because ou can't buy their full ranges online and they don't carry as many like-for-like branded products that other supermarkets stock.
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Morrisons offered the second most affordable shop for the three out of the four weeks of analysis, albeit by close margins – there was just an 87p average basket cost difference between them and Tesco. However, Morrisons’ costs increased towards the end of the month; their basket value went up by £5.79 from £123.66 in week three to £129.45 in week four, while Tesco offered the second cheapest basket shop for the last week of the month at £124.65. Although they were pipped to the post, Tesco moved up the leader board to third place from last month, while Sainsbury’s plummeted to fourth place.
Ocado and Waitrose are still the least affordable of the largest supermarkets being tracked – with a marginal price difference of just £1.14 this time around. However, Waitrose’s basket costs were the priciest throughout the whole of July and subsequently retained their title as the most expensive supermarket for the second month running.
And it seems that the products fluctuating in price the most are all the treats we love - namely, chocolate and gin - as the prices of these rose as July came to a close.
Looking into price changes across the board, the price of alcohol, including gin, vodka and beer, fluctuated throughout the month across all six supermarkets as Britons were shopping in anticipation for the Women’s Euro 2022 football tournament. Gin and vodka at Morrisons and Asda started the month at £13 and then, for the last two weeks of the month – when England reached the finals – increased by almost 20% to £16 at both supermarkets. Furthermore, a pack of four beers at Asda cost just £4 for the first week of July, and then went up to £4.60 during the week of the Women’s Euros final.
The price of chocolate also varied throughout the month for all supermarkets, as parents shopped for teachers' gifts ahead of the school summer holiday starting. Morrisons and Sainsbury’s both slashed the price of a 360g Cadbury chocolate bar by £1 at the end of the month, dropping from £4 to £3, while Asda and Ocado increased theirs by 50p and £1 respectively.
The full breakdown of July's supermarket basket costs:
1. ASDA – £117.34 (+28p compared to last month’s findings)
2. Morrisons – £123.40 (+£1.20)
3. Tesco – £124.26 (+£1.85)
4. Sainsbury’s – £124.90 (+£4.03)
5. Ocado – £135.99 (+£5.79)
6. Waitrose – £137.13 (+£4.28)
Here's how Alertr got the data:
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.
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