Sainsbury’s shoppers are paying £1,479 more for 52 weekly shops than Aldi customers, even if they have the supermarket’s Nectar card, according to research. Consumer group Which? revealed that Aldi narrowly beat discount rival Lidl to hold on to its crown as the cheapest UK supermarket in the last month.
In February Aldi charged £182.64 on average for a basket of 100 branded and own-label groceries while shoppers at Sainsbury’s paid £225.20, reduced to £213.46 if they used their Nectar card. Shoppers at Lidl paid £1.87 more if customers have its Lidl Plus loyalty app £184.51, or £2.30 more if not at £184.94, compared to Aldi. Of the traditional UK supermarkets Asda, came top at £201.85 while Waitrose was the most expensive supermarket at £245.79 – just over £63 more than Aldi.
Which? also compared the average cost of a larger selection of 206 items – the original 100 plus 106 more. It was unable to include Aldi and Lidl in this price comparison as our bigger shop has a wider selection of branded items, which were unavailable at the discounters.
Asda was the cheapest, with the total cost averaging £512.30 and a Tesco shop using its Clubcard same in second cheapest at £515.30.
Waitrose was the priciest supermarket again (£585.10) – our shopping cost 14% more there than at Asda.
Last month Marks and Spencer (M&S) was crowned best supermarket of the year, beatingl Aldi, in an annual Which? survey.
Shoppers who took part praised M&S’s quality of products and shopping experience. It saw 3,206 members of the UK public taking part in the survey, rating 4,378 in-store and 1,350 online shopping experiences during October and November last year.
Aldi maintains its crown of Which?’s “cheapest supermarket of 2024” but its bargain prices failed to impress shoppers, who said they were fed up with long checkout queues, feeling rushed by cashiers, and of local stores that were were messy or badly stocked.
Tesco came second for in-store shopping and joint first for online shopping but missed out on WRP status due to the consumer champion’s concerns about the accessibility of its Clubcard loyalty scheme.
To qualify as a WRP, supermarkets must meet strict criteria, including getting at least three stars for customer service, value for money and quality of own-label and fresh products.
Which? said it also conducts further checks, including on the provision of nutritional labelling and reported food safety breaches.
M&S was awarded a score of 79% and emerged as the UK’s highest-rated in-store supermarket for the fourth year in a row, and was the only retailer to earn five stars for the quality of its own-label and fresh products.
