It’s a resounding victory for Sainsbury’s, where more than half the items in this week’s basket were on a price-cut Nectar promotion.
At £67.83, Sainsbury’s was 8.1% cheaper than its nearest rival. It boasted 12 exclusively cheapest items, twice as many as anywhere else, including the McCain potato wedges, haddock fillets and Calippo lollies.
In total, Nectar members would have saved £12.81, or 18.9% of the basket total. Those deals also meant Sainsbury’s was the only supermarket to cost less than last year: deflation was 4.5% but that flips to inflation of 3.4% if only base prices are examined.
Tesco’s £73.81 basket cost £5.98 more than Sainsbury’s. Its four outright cheapest products were the Tilda rice, La Vieille Ferme wine, beetroot and mixed leaf salad. Its discounts were the second highest with 10 price cuts and four multibuys.
Asda (£74.73) had the highest inflation and shallowest deals. Its basket cost 6.1% more than a month ago and 7.7% more than a year ago. This reflects a change in its promotional mix towards multibuys. Asda had eight of them, including a four for £5 deal on frozen products and buy six save 25% on wine. When they are pro-rated Asda would proffer the cheapest basket with annual inflation falling to just 0.7%.
Asda was cheapest for 10 items and exclusively so for six.
Morrisons (£76.51) was 12.8% dearer than Sainsbury’s. Only its Genius brioche burger buns and Violife feta alternative were cheapest – it price-matched an additional five cheapest SKUs.
Waitrose (£91.73) was far behind and cost 35.2% more than Sainsbury’s. It price matched our game watching snacks, the Proper popcorn and Pringles, and was exclusively cheapest for the Lipton Ice Tea.
Across the five retailers the average inflation stood at 2.9%, or 4.2% without promotions.
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