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A promo on celery was one of 16 offered by Asda in this week’s basket

Asda held off the challenge of Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s loyalty-based pricing to take its first win in three weeks.

At £72.14 Asda was £1.24 cheaper than nearest rival Morrisons. Aided by a whopping 16 promotions (including 10 multibuys), it offered the lowest price for 14 items, six exclusively, including the apples, celery and Dairylea Dunkers.

Morrisons offered the lowest price for 11 products and was exclusively cheapest on Aero mousse, Arla Lactofree milk, Ben’s Original Rice and onions.

Based on shelf-edge prices, guest retailer Iceland came in third. The frozen specialist was £3.46 dearer than Asda at £75.60, and matched its 16 promotions, of which 12 were multibuys. It was exclusively cheapest for five items including the finger rolls, lamb chops and Maryland cookies.

Tesco was exactly a fiver more expensive than Asda at £77.14. However with Clubcard Prices, a £4.30 discount would have closed the gap to 70p, though it would have been pipped into second place by just 1p by Sainsbury’s, with its Nectar Prices discounts reducing the its basket from £77.48 to £72.83.

Waitrose was exclusively cheapest for the Leerdammer slices, but the upmarket retailer was ultimately £11.71 more expensive than Asda at £83.85.

On a more positive note, it kept a better lid on inflation than its rivals, amid better news on the UK inflation front this week as the CPI fell to 6.8% in July compared with 7.9% in June. However, the cost of our list was still 11% more expensive than August 2023 and 1.8% pricier than last month.

Five products were cheaper than a year ago including the pitta breads and Elmlea cream alternative and a further seven lines increased by less than 10%. However, four items were still up at least 30% and a further six by at least 20%.