Bahlsen

Asda came in comfortably cheaper than its main rivals in this week’s Grocer 33 pricing survey.

The Issa brothers and TDR Capital-owned retailer has been finding the landscape increasingly competitive, but its rivals failed to get close on shelf-edge prices – and were still out after factoring in promotions.

At £58.07, Asda was £3.64 cheaper than runner-up Tesco. It offered the lowest price on 15 products, of which 13 were exclusively cheapest. These included the Bahlsen biscuits, garlic baguettes and popcorn.

Tesco would have come out cheapest in each of the last three weeks after factoring in its Clubcard Prices. However, this week Tesco’s loyalty card holders would have received a discount of just 70p. This would have reduced Tesco’s total to £61.01 – still £2.94 more expensive than Asda.

It offered the lowest price for 12 products and was exclusively cheapest for four: the Crunchies, garlic naans, haddock and sweet potatoes.

Third-placed Morrisons came in £4.47 pricier than Asda at £62.54. Like Tesco, it was also exclusively cheapest for four lines: the cucumber, Itsu bao buns, Laughing Cow triangles and Quorn cocktail sausages.

Sainsbury’s this week reaffirmed its commitment to helping shoppers tackle the cost of living crisis. However, it was over a fiver more expensive than Asda. It carried the lowest price for seven products but its only exclusively cheapest line was the sliced roast beef.

Waitrose was a long way off the pace this week at £76.10. That was despite being exclusively cheapest for the brown rice, double cream and the watermelon. Waitrose was also most affected by inflation, with its prices up 11.1% on last year.

Across the five retailers, annual inflation on this basket was 6.5% year on year and 1.8% month on month.