Every month, we compare the cost of a trolley of popular items at eight major supermarkets, before revealing the cheapest place to shop.
Aldi narrowly beat rival Lidl’s prices every single month of 2024, leading Which? to officially name it the cheapest supermarket of the year.
Aldi crowned cheapest supermarket for fourth year in a row
We checked the cost of a basket of own-label and branded products at Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose every day in 2024, revealing the cheapest supermarket at the start of each month.
When it came to the UK’s bigger supermarkets, Asda was cheaper than Sainsbury’s and Tesco for eight months of the year.
However, prices at Tesco for Clubcard holders were cheaper than Asda more than half of the time since we began including loyalty prices in our monthly comparison last June.
Find out more:Where was cheapest for a big shop?
We also compared the average cost of a larger selection of more than 150 items including more branded products. We were unable to include Aldi and Lidl in this price analysis as they only stock a limited range of brands.
Waitrose was the most expensive for 11 out of 12 months last year.
How supermarket prices compared in December
We tracked the price of 56 branded and own-label groceries every day in December, including milk, carrots, baked beans, a Hovis loaf and Birds Eye peas.
The table below shows how much our basket of groceries cost on average. There were loyalty promotions running on some items at Lidl, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco, so we've calculated the average price for both members and non-members.
The price difference between the discounters was even smaller when we factored in Lidl’s loyalty offers – just £1.19, on average.
Tesco shoppers with a Clubcard would have spent £111.22 for an equivalent shop, making it the cheapest of the big chains.
Waitrose was the most expensive supermarket, with the cost of our groceries averaging £129.83, which is nearly £30 more than at Aldi.
Where was cheapest for a longer shopping list?
We also compared the average cost of a bigger shop of 158 items (the original 56 plus 102 more). This analysis didn't include Aldi or Lidl as lots of the branded products on our list were unavailable.
Tesco was the cheapest supermarket for Clubcard holders, with the total cost averaging £410.40. However, shoppers without a Clubcard would have paid £30 more on average.
Sainsbury’s shoppers with a Nectar card would have paid just £1.74 more than Clubcard holders, on average, at £412.14. The average cost for customers who aren’t signed up to its membership scheme would have been nearly £35 more (£446.67).
Asda was cheaper than Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons if you’re not signed up to their loyalty schemes.
Members of Asda's Rewards scheme also would have earned an average of £1.05 cashback on products with loyalty promotions. We haven't factored this into our price comparison because loyalty members don't receive the discount on the day.
Grocery inflation back on the rise
Chocolate had the fastest-rising prices of the 20 food and drink categories we track, with annual inflation of 13.6% in the three months to the end of November 2024. This is due to soaring global cocoa prices caused by bad weather and poor harvests in West Africa.
Lidl had the fastest-rising prices of the major supermarket chains, with prices up 4% year-on-year. Waitrose had the lowest inflation at 0.9%.
Supermarkets and the British Retail Consortium have warned that higher living wages and National Insurance contributions could lead to steeper food inflation this year.
Find out more:.How Which? compares supermarket prices
We check the prices of dozens 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 of each item across the month, then add those up to get each store’s average price.
Our shopping list comprises the country’s most popular and widely available groceries, based on extensive market analysis.
Own-brand items won’t be identical across supermarkets, but we’ve ensured everything we’ve compared is as similar as possible based on a number of factors, including quality and weight. We include special offers, but not multibuy discounts.
We're only able to take into account loyalty prices that apply to all members of a scheme (where there's one price on the shelf for shoppers with a loyalty card and another for those without). Currently, this type of two-tier pricing is used at Lidl, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose.
We can’t factor in points, personalised discounts or other rewards as these vary from customer to customer and don't always have a quantifiable monetary value that we could take off the basket totals we report on.
Find out more: .source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/which-was-the-cheapest-supermarket-in-2024-aq9Jt0i5exZ7