Discounts for Lidl Plus users made all the difference in our Super Grocer 33 pricing survey, which pitches the two biggest grocery discounters against the full-range supermarkets.
Both discounters were cheapest for 27 items in our barbecue-themed basket, including the watermelon, premium brioche hot dog rolls and coleslaw.
However Lidl’s well-timed loyalty price promos gave it the exclusively cheapest sausages and beef quarter pounders. Its £54.67 basket had a 0.5% – or 29p – lead over its rival.
A discount on the apples gave Aldi its only exclusively cheapest item in a £54.96 basket.
Lidl’s loyalty programme has been a key differentiator in its battle with Aldi. Chief customer officer Louise Weise recently credited increased loyalty to half of Lidl’s sales growth.
Aldi thought it saw an opportunity when Lidl replaced established rewards with points to the disappointment of some customers, doubling down with its ‘no points, no cards, no faff’ marketing communications last month. Indeed, if loyalty discounts were removed from the equation, Aldi’s basket would be a full £1 cheaper than Lidl’s.
The full-range supermarkets were, as usual, way behind. Asda (£60.48) cost 10.6% more than Lidl, though it did sell the exclusively cheapest aubergine and vanilla ice cream.
Asda maintained its lead over the traditional supermarkets, though by less than its targeted 5% to 10% margin. Asda was 2.5% cheaper than Sainsbury’s (£62.05), 3% cheaper than Tesco (£62.33), and 3.6% cheaper than Morrisons (£62.76).
Waitrose (£72.13) was 31.9% pricier than Lidl and failed to match a single cheapest item.
Our own-label-heavy basket cost 1.6% more than a year ago, however Aldi and Lidl brought down that figure with baskets that totalled 0.3% and 0.2% less than 12 months ago.
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