With Marks & Spencer featured as a guest retailer, this week’s Grocer 33 basket was dominated by own-label products. The presence of only nine branded SKUs meant fewer and shallower discounts across the board too.
But Asda still came in cheapest, its pledge last month to offer more than 2,300 everyday products at lower prices than full-range rivals paying off.
At £60.66, Asda’s basket was a comfortable 4.1% cheaper than Morrisons, its nearest competitor. It was cheapest for 18 SKUs and exclusively so for 11 of those. For some, like the peanut butter, sourdough and raspberries, it led by pennies. It pulled away from rivals with a promotion on Pepsi Max that cost more than double everywhere else, and notably lower base prices on fresh tagliatelle, Timothy Taylor’s beer and the fresh coriander pot.
Our basket contained ingredients for a stir-fry this week: beef strips, Blue Dragon sauce, pak choi, yellow pepper and coriander. Asda came up on top here too, with a £8.09 subtotal, followed by Sainsbury’s with £8.26. Everywhere else cost over £9, with Waitrose the dearest at £11.10.
Just £2.12 separated second and fourth place. Morrisons (£63.24) was cheapest for five SKUs including the steak & ale pie and spinach. Tesco (£64.61) was exclusively cheapest on one SKU, the Tunnock’s Caramel wafers, and matched another nine prices. Tesco’s was also the highest price increase: its basket cost 4.2% more than a year ago. Asda was 6.1% cheaper than Sainsbury’s (£65.36).
At the premium end of the market, guest retailer M&S (£77.99) beat Waitrose (£78.08) by just 9p. It was exclusively cheapest on Yeo Valley milk and baguettes, and joint cheapest on a further two SKUs. Waitrose just managed to price match a single yellow pepper. Asda was over a fifth (22.3%) cheaper.
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