Best and worst supermarkets compared

The UK's definitive supermarket survey reveals the best and worst grocery stores for food quality, customer service and value for money.

It's been a year like no other for supermarkets. Some have risen to the challenges posed by the pandemic, while others have struggled to cope with demand.

Our survey of more than 3,000 shoppers reveals the best supermarket based on your priorities: whether you're after value for money, a pleasant in-store experience or all-round great service, our star ratings and customer scores will help you choose the grocer for you.

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Best supermarkets for shopping in-store

Links take you to our reviews of each supermarket. 

Best supermarkets for online grocery deliveries

Links take you to our reviews of each supermarket. 

Which is the freshest online supermarket?

We went undercover to find out how the supermarkets compare when it comes to delivering fresh food, using a team of mystery shoppers to order more than 1,000 groceries in the first – and biggest – comparison of its kind. 

During the course of the investigation, our mystery shoppers took delivery of items that were already out of date by the time they were delivered, groceries that were within their use-by date but looked too manky to eat, and one item with a completely illegible use-by date.

Log in or join Which? to discover which supermarkets will deliver the freshest produce - and which ones could leave you with past-it produce that's dangerous to eat. 

Which supermarket offers the best coronavirus safety measures?

In our annual supermarkets survey, we asked shoppers to rate their supermarket's in-store COVID-19 safety measures. Sainsbury's had the most people rating its measures as good or excellent with 81%, while Lidl and Iceland had the least with 66%. You can see how all the supermarkets compare below.

How do we find the UK's best and worst supermarkets?

We surveyed 3,037 members of the public in October 2020 for our annual supermarkets survey. The respondents were only asked about supermarkets they had used within the previous five months.

For those who did their supermarket shopping in-store, we asked them to rate how good the supermarket's appearance and how long it takes to queue at the checkout. We also asked whether there are friendly staff available to help with any queries.

For online shoppers, we asked whether there's usually a good choice of delivery time slots, whether the supermarket chooses sensible substitutions when items are unavailable, and how good the drivers' service is.

We asked both in-store and online shoppers the all-important questions around value for money and the quality of fresh and own-label products. 

And finally, we asked how satisfied shoppers are on the whole with their supermarket, and whether they would recommend it. These two questions allow us to calculate our unique Which? customer scores.

Find out more

• Supermarket price comparison: which is the UK's cheapest grocer?
• Best Buy food and drink: from prosecco to burgers, what impressed our experts?
• Best and worst supermarket loyalty cards: where can you earn the most as you shop?