Asda Blood orange pork pie

Asda has come in cheapest for this year’s Christmas Grocer 33 – though the best deal for Christmas dinner is for those using Tesco’s Clubcard.

At £105, our shopping list, which included key Christmas dinner ingredients along with a variety of seasonal treats, was £4.90 cheaper at Asda than runner-up Sainsbury’s and £9.09 cheaper than Tesco.

However, Tesco Clubcard members would have received a discount of £14.48 including a fiver off the Baileys. This would have cut the cost of shopping at Tesco to £99.41, making it £5.59 cheaper than Asda. (Tesco also undercut all its rivals on the pork stuffing and mini Christmas crackers.)

Asda offered the lowest price for 16 products and was exclusively cheapest for nine, including the sprouts, cranberry sauce and mulled wine.

Inflation on the Christmas 33 was 3.3%, with the price of the Cadbury Advent Calendar (39%), turkey (17%) and Christmas pudding (11%) up most. Inflation was highest at Asda (6%), followed by Morrisons (5.8%), Tesco (3.2%) and Waitrose (3.1%). Sainsbury’s, by contrast, was 1.6% cheaper than last year.

Sainsbury’s offered the lowest price for 11 products and was exclusively cheapest for the chipolatas, Colman’s bread sauce mix and wensleydale.

Morrisons was exclusively cheapest for the salmon fillets, prawn cocktail and grapes. At £118.48, it was £13.48 more expensive than Asda.

There was an even more sizable gap to Waitrose – £35.30 more expensive than Asda at £140.30 – despite 14 promotions, compared with 13 at Morrisons, Tesco with 11, Sainsbury’s 10 and Asda nine.

Waitrose was also exclusively cheapest for the Villa Maria wine, San Pellegrino water, Cadbury Advent calendar and Aunt Bessie’s Yorkshire puds.