asda

Normal service resumed this week as Asda secured its ninth pricing victory of the Grocer 33 year.

Its £49.41 basket was £3.40 cheaper than its nearest rival, Sainsbury’s, with 21 products cheapest, including nine exclusively so. It was helped by savings on products like the Warburtons bagels, which, despite coming off promotion, were 10p cheaper than its competitors.

Sainsbury’s competitive price came despite only four promotions, all on branded products, and these were among the five exclusively cheapest products it offered, comprising Hobgoblin IPA, Herta Frankfurters and Bacofoil kitchen foil, as well as own-label macaroni and potato salad.

Morrisons, despite running the most promotions at 14, was only exclusively cheapest on three products: the Gaviscon tablets, Hovis bread (only 1p cheaper) and own-label kidney beans. This meant its £53.21 basket, while still competitive, was £3.80 behind Asda.

Tesco also failed to impress with only one exclusively cheapest product, the Alpro almond milk, though this beat out promotions from three of the other retailers. Tesco’s basket was also 6% more expensive than last month - the largest change among the retailers - despite being 54p cheaper year on year.

Our guest retailer, Ocado, was further behind with its £58.88 basket, though it was exclusively cheapest on two items, including the McCain French Fries thanks to a 65p-off deal.

But Ocado was a lot cheaper than arch rival Waitrose. With a year to go until Ocado’s own-label supply switches to Marks & Spencer - which insists its prices are 3% cheaper - the gap to the £62.76 basket of Waitrose was more than 6%. In the case of the broccoli the £2 price at Waitrose was almost three times more than Ocado’s 71p.