Clubcard promotions gave Tesco the cheapest basket for the first time since August, but it beat Asda by just 44p.
Tesco’s £69.72 basket included £6.96 of price-cut promos on 11 items. Its largest advantages over Asda came from the Clubcard deals on the Spice Tailor curry kit, Anchor butter, McGuigan chardonnay and gala apples. Tesco also recorded the biggest monthly price fall, with the value of its basket down 5.5%.
Asda (£70.16) was exclusively cheapest for nine items and joint cheapest for 10. But with five promos that gave shoppers discounts worth only £1.62, its EDLP focus wasn’t enough to compensate for Tesco’s deals.
Sainsbury’s (£71.25) sold two exclusively cheapest items this week, the Oatly and apples, both on Nectar promotions, and price matched a further 11 SKUs.
Tight competition meant fourth-placed Morrisons (£71.99) was still only 3.3% dearer than Tesco. Its Hovis loaf was cheapest. Morrisons also recorded the lowest annual inflation, at just 0.3%, compared with Asda’s 3.2% and Tesco’s 1.6%. Its basket was £1 cheaper than a month earlier.
Recent NIQ and Worldpanel figures showed annual food inflation rose last month. Our basket cost an average of 2.4% more than a year ago, with the figure highest at Waitrose. At £89.78, its basket cost 3.9% more than last year and was 28.8% pricier than Tesco. Waitrose failed to match the cheapest price on any item.
Our easy dinner of chicken breast, Spice Tailor curry kit, Tilda basmati rice and cauliflower cost £12.21 at Waitrose, 40.7% more than Tesco’s £8.68.
Among the big rises in this week’s basket were the premium own-label cod fishcakes. These cost 21% more year on year when including promotions and 14% more on pre-promotional pricing.
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