Asda was cheapest for the second week running in our weekly Grocer 33 price comparison survey. But what about the 5%-10% price gap Allan Leighton is promising as part of his turnaround?
With another 1,500 items now on Rollback (on top of the 20% Asda introduced at the start of February, according to Asda’s executive chairman), Asda’s £62.39 total was 4.4% (£2.77) cheaper than the same basket last month, with eight items seeing price decreases (and five increases). It was also cheapest on 16 items, and exclusively so on 12, including big savings on the Chicago Town Pizza, Fuel10K porridge and Guinness (see the figures in green on the table for the cheapest items).
It meant, even including the loyalty prices of its rivals, Asda was able to fulfil Leighton’s promise when it came to arch-rivals Tesco (9% cheaper) and Sainsbury’s (6.3% cheaper) as well as Waitrose (16.4% cheaper).
But Morrisons – another private equity-backed supermarket chain with its value credentials still to prove – had other ideas. Asda was only 1.5% or 96p cheaper than Morrisons’ £63.35 total, which included £7.33 (12.1%) in savings from 14 promos (the joint highest number). Indeed, if a shopper took advantage of the six multibuys, it would have been cheapest at £60.65 based on the unit price (see the ‘All-Inclusive’ tab for more details). It was also exclusively cheapest on three items (Beyond Burgers, mangoes and Mrs Elswood gherkins).
Sainsbury’s offered even greater value savings from its Nectar Prices loyalty scheme – £7.52 (or 11.4%) off the £65.78 bill. And it dropped the price of 11 items. As a result, it was 10.5% cheaper than last month. But none of its 11 promotions were game-changers, not even the three exclusively cheapest items (Dairylea cheese slices, Nutella B-ready bars and sticky toffee pudding).
More surprising was seeing how far Tesco was adrift. There were only £1.35 of savings from Clubcard Prices on the 33 items, and it was the only supermarket in our price comparison survey that recorded inflation on the basket (1.5%).
Average annual price deflation was 3.1% and 6.2% month on month.
Even Waitrose was in discount mode. The 14 items on promotion offered savings of £7.50, with two items – the Lynx shower gel and Flora Buttery – exclusively cheapest.
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