Which was the cheapest supermarket in August 2022?
Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in August, according to the latest monthly analysis from Which?.
We compared the prices in a basket of 49 popular grocery items in August. The pricing analysis found that shoppers would have paid £76.24 for the shop at Aldi.
In the wider analysis – including 153 items across the six 'traditional' supermarkets – we found that you could save nearly £50 by shopping at Asda rather than Waitrose.
Read on to find out how your supermarket compares in the analysis.
Cheapest supermarket for a basket of groceries
Every day in August, we checked the price of 49 popular groceries, including Heinz baked beans, milk and tea bags, at the UK's biggest supermarkets to see how they compare.
The table below shows how much our basket cost on average:
Aldi was the cheapest overall, with our shop costing £76.24, on average, beating rival discounter Lidl by £1.66.
The same shop at Waitrose was £102.20, on average, making it £25.96 more expensive than Aldi.
Of the 'big four' supermarkets, Asda was the cheapest at £85.99.
Of course, price is just one factor when you're deciding which supermarket to shop at. We also survey shoppers on their experiences in terms of product quality, customer service, store experience, online deliveries and a range of other factors to reveal the best and worst supermarkets each year.
- Find out more: how to spend less at the supermarket
How do bigger shopping lists compare?
We also compared the cost of a larger trolley of 153 items (the original 49, plus 104 more).
This trolley included a larger number of branded items, such as Andrex toilet paper and Cathedral City cheese. You can’t always find these items in discounter supermarkets, so we haven’t included Aldi or Lidl in this comparison.
Asda cost the least with this trolley of groceries, continuing its streak as the cheapest traditional supermarket, which started in January 2020. It cost £337.50, on average, for our big trolley shop, beating the next cheapest, Sainsbury's (£360.93), by £23.43.
Waitrose was a whopping £49.48 more expensive than Asda, coming in at £386.98, on average, for the same trolley of goods.
- Find out more: managing the cost of living
How Which? compares supermarket prices
We look at the prices of hundreds of grocery items at eight major supermarkets every day throughout the year, using an independent price comparison website.
For each supermarket, we work out the average price for each item across the month, then we add those up to get each store’s average trolley price. To keep things fair, we include special offers, but we don’t count multibuys or loyalty scheme discounts.
Our shopping list includes branded items such as Heinz baked beans and Dolmio sauce, as well as own-brand products such as apples and lettuce. Own-brand items won’t be identical across supermarkets, but we’ve used experts to ensure everything we’ve compared is as similar as possible, based on a number of factors including quality and weight.
- Find out more: supermarket price comparison over time
Supermarkets: inflation latest
Grocery price inflation was 11.6% in the four weeks to 7 August, according to market analysts Kantar. That's the highest level since Kantar started measuring it in 2008.
Fraser McKevitt, Kantar's head of retail and consumer insight, said: 'As predicted, we’ve now hit a new peak in grocery price inflation, with products such as butter, milk and poultry, in particular, seeing some of the biggest jumps. This rise means that the average annual shop is set to rise by a staggering £533, or £10.25 every week, if consumers buy the same products as they did last year.'
Unsurprisingly, shoppers are making lifestyle changes as a result – with own-label ranges at record levels of popularity. Sales of own-label items are rising by 7.3% and holding 51.6% of the market compared with branded products.
The number of products sold on promotion is 24.7% (14 years ago it was 30%) as retailers focus on providing value through everyday low prices and value ranges – which, according to Kantar, have seen sales rise by 19.7% this month. Find out more with our guide explaining everything you need to know about budget groceries.
August also saw Sainsbury’s announce it will pump £65 million into its pricing, predominantly for its Price Lock campaign, which freezes the price of a raft of its most popular products.
- Find out more: what supermarkets are doing to help with the cost of living
