Asda came in cheapest at the shelf-edge this week but it was undercut by both Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s loyalty-based pricing. And of the two it was Sainsbury’s that ultimately proved cheapest.
Asda offered the lowest price for 21 items and was exclusively cheapest for 10 including the red chillies, mackerel fillets and Strongbow cider.
At £65.54, Asda was £2.94 cheaper than Morrisons, which this week followed its fellow Yorkshire-based supermarket in launching a price-matching scheme against both Aldi and Lidl. Morrisons was cheapest for 15 products, exclusively so for six including the bulgur wheat, cauliflower and Fanta.
Tesco’s basket was £3.46 more expensive than Asda’s at £69.00. However, loyalty cardholders would have enjoyed a £4.15 discount, making it 69p cheaper than Asda.
But Nectar members received even bigger discounts at Sainsbury’s this week, running Nectar Prices deals on a third of the items on our list which added up to £7.15. This reduced Sainsbury’s bill from £70.37 to £63.22 and left it £2.32 cheaper than Asda (and £1.63 cheaper than Tesco).
Waitrose was cheapest for eight items and exclusively so for four (the avocados, Quorn chicken-free slices, Yazoo milkshake and red leicester cheese), making its £72.65 total just £7.11 more expensive than Asda’s.
There were eight items cheaper than this time last year, though the bulgur wheat was up 39%, and the Pledge polish, Farrow’s peas and Lucozade Sport were all more than 20% more expensive.
Ironically Sainsbury’s recorded the highest inflation based on shelf-edge prices – up 14.1% vs 7% on average. But with Nectar Prices included it was a more modest 4.4%, and the average inflation rate fell to 4.9%, proving loyalty cards are keeping inflation at bay.
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