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Asda’s £77.87 Grocer 33 basket included 10 exclusively cheapest lines

Asda triumphed again in this week’s pricing survey. It easily beat guest retailers Ocado and Amazon, but was closer than last week to Tesco and Sainsbury’s, both within 2% of its total.

The traditionally discount-heavy month of September heralded a wave of price cuts and promotions. These provided a welcome respite from inflation, pushing prices down by an average of 2.4% month on month. Sainsbury’s went the furthest, down 9.6%.

Asda’s £77.87 basket had 10 exclusively cheapest products, including promotions on the kimchi and Fruit Shoots, and a low single unit price of multibuy favourite Müller Corner.

Tesco was just 77p behind on £78.64. With a total of 13 promotions, it offered more price cuts than any of its rivals this week. Indeed, if multibuy discounts were included on a pro-rata basis, it would have pipped Asda by 17p. Tesco’s prices were 9.3% lower than last month and down 4% year on year.

Sainsbury’s was 83p behind Tesco on £79.47. Its price cuts were the deepest, with £9.51 of savings. That included a Nectar promotion that made its sea bass fillets £1.01 cheaper than anywhere else.

Morrisons this week kicked off a pre-Christmas price war, cutting the cost of more than 650 products. Those efforts were not yet apparent in this week’s basket. Its £82.89 total included only one exclusively cheapest item: Persil laundry liquid.

Amazon came in third in our last online special, but slumped to fifth place this week (£84.31). Its burger buns, sweet potatoes and Cif multi-purpose cleaner were exclusively cheapest.

Ocado (£85.03) and Waitrose (£91.59) were the only retailers to have a higher basket total than last month. Neither offered any exclusively cheapest items this week. However in the premium supermarket battle, Ocado was 7.2% cheaper.