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Which was the cheapest supermarket in April?

We’ve compared hundreds of prices to reveal where you can buy the cheapest food, drink and household items right now

Which was the cheapest supermarket in April?
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Asda was the cheapest major online supermarket in April, according to Which? analysis. 

We compared prices across 186 grocery items throughout the month and found that, on average, shoppers would have paid £291.67 at Asda last month – £19.51 less than at Morrisons, its nearest rival.

But which of the supermarkets was the most expensive? And what about discounters Aldi and Lidl? 

Here, we compare supermarket prices across all the big names and explain how we’ve changed our research to be able to include the discounters.

How do supermarket prices compare? 

We checked the prices of 186 items, from coffee to Kleenex, throughout April to see how UK supermarkets compared. We looked at a combination of branded and own-label goods, which have been selected by experts to be as comparable as possible.

Asda was the cheapest at £291.67 – a hefty £72.21 less than the most expensive supermarket, Waitrose, which came in at £363.88. 

 

We can’t compare exactly the same items each month because products aren’t always available at every retailer, but when we looked at 193 product prices in March, Asda was also the cheapest mainstream supermarket (£295) and Waitrose the priciest (£376).

What about Aldi and Lidl? 

We weren’t able to get a full range of prices at the two discounters this month. This is because, unlike the other major supermarkets, they don’t list all of their prices online and it’s not possible to send fieldworkers to stores to check a full trolley’s-worth of grocery prices during lockdown.

We did manage to get a limited number of prices, which meant we could compare a small basket of seven grocery items (including milk and cucumber) across all eight of the UK’s biggest supermarkets, including Aldi and Lidl. 

Lidl was the cheapest supermarket overall, at £8.56 for our basket – beating Aldi by just 4p.

The cheapest of the non-discounters was Asda, at £10.10, while the most expensive supermarket for this limited basket of groceries was Waitrose at £13.99.  

 

Last month, when we were able to include a much larger selection of products from the discounters, Aldi emerged as the cheapest supermarket.

How Which? compares supermarket prices

We tracked the prices of 186 items at the UK’s six biggest supermarkets throughout April.

On our shopping list were own-brand items such as pasta, eggs, lettuce and milk, as well as branded items such as Kenco Millicano coffee, Oxo stock cubes and Patak’s curry paste pots.

Using data from an independent price comparison website, we calculated the average price (including special offers, but not multibuys) for each item throughout the month. We added those individual averages together to give an overall price for the trolley at each shop for the month.

How our research has changed to include Aldi and Lidl

Which? has been analysing supermarket prices for years, but we changed our methodology earlier this year to include Aldi and Lidl for the first time.

Why? We used to only include branded products in our trolley. This had the advantage of ensuring that we were strictly comparing like with like. However, the downside was that as Aldi and Lidl primarily sell own-label items with just a small supplementary range of branded goods, they couldn’t be included.

Many Which? members told us that they would find it helpful to be able to see how the discounters compared with the mainstream supermarkets. We listened to that feedback and have added own-label items to our trolley to enable us to widen the net of retailers we include.

We used experts to ensure that the products are as comparable as possible, based on a range of factors including weight, quality and other industry data.

However, due to the UK-wide lockdown, we were unable to get a full range of prices at the two discounters in April.

Should you choose a supermarket purely based on price?

For many people, price isn’t everything: customer service and the overall experience of being in the store can also make a big difference.

And with grocery shopping recently affected in unprecedented ways due to the coronavirus pandemic, extra factors will probably be influencing your choice of supermarket: proximity if you’re able to get to the shops, or the availability of online delivery slots if not (see below for more info on this).

If you’re lucky enough to have a choice right now, you might be interested to see which retailers Which? members have voted as the best online and in store supermarkets.

Supermarket reactions to coronavirus

The past couple of months have been a whirlwind for supermarkets, with panic buying, lockdown and social distancing all presenting unprecedented challenges for the sector and shoppers alike.

Which? hasbeen working hard to provide advice about what’s going on with supermarket shopping.

If you want to know more, read the following articles:

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