The cheapest supermarkets in the UK – Lidl vs Aldi vs Tesco
Consumer rights group Which? has published its latest supermarket survey, which shows that Lidl has snatched the cheapest supermarket crown from Aldi for the first time in 20 months.
The research is based on the prices of 76 popular branded and own-brand groceries, including Hovis sliced bread, milk and cheese, at eight of the UK’s biggest supermarkets throughout July to see how they compared.
The data shows:
- Lidl was the cheapest overall for our shop, beating rival discounter Aldi by £1.25 if you had a Lidl Plus card, or 85p if not.
- The next cheapest was Asda, which doesn’t offer loyalty prices in the same way as the others. It was 9% more than Lidl for our shopping list.
- Meanwhile, shopping at Tesco without a loyalty card was still cheaper than shopping at Morrisons with one.
- Sainsbury’s was running Nectar price promotions on 15 items on our list, while Tesco had Clubcard prices on 16. Meanwhile, Morrisons had two More scheme discounts on items in our basket, and Lidl had three items on our list with a loyalty discount.
- Waitrose also offers some loyalty prices to members, but there were none for items on our shopping list this month. It was the priciest supermarket again this month, averaging £170.91 – over £42 (or 33%) more than Lidl.
Growing inflation
According to the latest shop price monitor from the British Retail Consortium, food prices rose by 4% in July from a year earlier, up from 3.7% in June and above the three-month average of 3.5%.
The BRC’s chief executive, Helen Dickinson, said households would have noticed their higher grocery bills after food price inflation rose for the sixth consecutive month.
“Staples such as meat and tea were hit the hardest as wholesale prices for both categories have been hit by tighter global supplies,” she said. “This has helped push up overall shop prices.”
