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Cheapest supermarkets 2024 – Which?

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Cheapest supermarkets 2024 – Which?

Which is the UK’s cheapest supermarket in 2024?

Every month, we compare thousands of prices at eight of the UK’s major supermarkets – Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose – to reveal the cheapest supermarket to buy your food, drink and household essentials from.

Aldi has been the cheapest supermarket every month this year so far, closely followed by Lidl – but how do big chains such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s compare?

Read on to find out the latest results of our supermarket price comparison.

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May 2024 

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in April, charging £121.56 on average for our shopping list of 69 popular groceries. Lidl was close behind, at £3.32 more (£124.88).

Waitrose was the most expensive supermarket at £158.13 – that’s 30% more than Aldi. 

Where was cheapest for a longer list of groceries?

We also compared a larger selection of 177 groceries – the original 69 plus 108 more – to reveal the cheapest supermarket based on a big shop including more branded products. 

We were unable to include Aldi and Lidl in this price comparison as they stock fewer branded items.

Asda was the cheapest supermarket for this bigger shopping list (£461.98), while Morrisons came in second place.

Waitrose remained the priciest supermarket (£505.36) – £43.38 more than Asda.

April 2024

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in April, charging £112.90 on average for our shopping list of 67 popular groceries. Waitrose was the most expensive supermarket at £144.13 – 28% more than Aldi. 

Asda was the cheapest supermarket for our bigger shopping list of 181 groceries. We were unable to include Aldi and Lidl in this comparison as they don’t stock enough of the branded items on our list.

March 2024

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in March, charging £121.06 on average for our shopping list of 71 popular groceries. Lidl was close behind, at less than £2 more (£122.95).

Waitrose was the most expensive supermarket at £158.52 – a whopping 30% more than Aldi. 

Asda was the cheapest supermarket for our bumper shopping list of 184 groceries. We were unable to include Aldi and Lidl in this comparison as they don’t stock enough of the branded items on our list.

February 2024

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in February, with a list of 72 popular groceries costing £125.43 on average. Lidl came in a close second, at less than £3 more expensive (£128.19).

Asda was cheapest when we compared a larger selection of groceries – the original 72 plus 113 more. Lidl and Aldi weren’t included in this comparison due to their limited ranges of branded items.

January 2024

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in January, with our shopping list of 72 items costing £129.24.

We also compared a larger selection of groceries – the original 72 plus 116 more – and found that Asda was the cheapest supermarket based on a larger sample size including more branded products.

 How we work out which is the cheapest supermarket

We track the prices of up to 200 branded and own-label products every day over the course of a month to work out the average cost per item. We then add up those averages to get a total for each retailer. We include special offers, but not multibuys or loyalty discounts. 

Products on our list include everything from Heinz baked beans and Mr Kipling cakes to own-label milk, bread and cheese.

Our data is supplied by an independent price comparison company. For stores that don’t have online prices we send fieldworkers out to stores to gather prices.

The master list of 200 products is currently updated annually but otherwise remains constant. However, the specific products chosen from the master list vary from month to month depending on availability. This means the totals aren’t comparable between months or years.

Cheapest supermarket of 2023

We checked the price of a basket of groceries at the UK’s biggest supermarkets every day throughout 2023, and announced the results each month.

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket for 11 months of the year, officially making it the cheapest supermarket of 2023 according to our analysis.

Lidl was the second-cheapest supermarket for the same 11 months, but narrowly beat Aldi to the top spot in October. 

Waitrose was the most expensive supermarket for our basket in every month of 2023.

Asda cheapest for larger trolleys

In our analysis of a bigger trolley of goods, in which we don’t include Aldi or Lidl due to their smaller product ranges, Asda was the cheapest supermarket every month but one. 

Morrisons scooped the winning spot in July.

Waitrose was the most expensive for a big trolley-full every month except September, when Sainsbury’s was priciest for the first time (for shoppers not using a Nectar card).

Our analysis includes discounts that are available to everyone, but not multibuys or loyalty prices such as Clubcard or Nectar prices, where you only get the discount if you’re a member of a loyalty scheme. This is because not everyone is able to join a loyalty scheme. You can read more about our research further down the page or by clicking here.

The results for each month of 2023 are below.

December 2023

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in December overall, with our list of 43 groceries coming in at £74.83 on average. 

We also compared the cost of a larger list of 131 items (the original 43, plus 88 more), for which Asda was cheapest at £326.77 on average. 

November 2023

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in November, knocking Lidl off the top spot – our basket of 47 items cost £76.77.

For our larger analysis, including a mix of 134 branded and own-brand items, Asda was the cheapest once again this month (£328.15), followed by Morrisons which was £10.01 more expensive.

October 2023

Lidl was the cheapest supermarket in October, with our shop costing £74.58, beating discounter rival Aldi by just 17p.

Asda was the cheapest for our larger trolley of 135 items, continuing its reign as the cheapest big supermarket and beating beating second-placed Morrisons by £10.98. 

September 2023

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in September, with our shop costing £67.72, beating discounter rival Lidl by £1.24.

We also compared the cost of a larger trolley of 131 items (the original 39 plus 92 more). 

Asda was cheapest, while – for shoppers not using a Nectar card – Sainsbury’s was the most expensive for the first time. It was £33.52 pricier than Asda on average, with a trolley-full costing £359.23.

August 2023

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in August overall, with our shop costing £65.21, pipping its discounter rival Lidl to the post by £1.32.

Asda was the cheapest for our larger trolley of 133 items, returning to its reign as the cheapest big supermarket after being pipped to the post by Morrisons in July – the first time another supermarket earned the title since January 2020.

July 2023

 Aldi was crowned the cheapest supermarket for the 14th consecutive month, with our basket of 38 groceries costing £71.22 on average. 

Morrisons ended Asda’s as the cheapest traditional supermarket for a larger trolley of products. Our big shop at Morrisons cost £341.92 on average.

June 2023

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket for the 13th month in a row, with a basket of 42 items costing £75.25 on average.

For our larger trolley of 134 grocery items, Asda continued its long-running streak as the cheapest traditional supermarket – a title it’s held since January 2020. 

May 2023

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket for the 12th month in a row, with our basket of 40 products costing £68.60 on average. 

For a larger trolley of 131 grocery items, Asda continued its long-running streak as the cheapest traditional supermarket.

April 2023

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in April, with a basket of 39 items costing £69.99 on average. It beat rival discounter Lidl by 65p.

For a larger trolley of 135 grocery items, Asda continued its long-running streak as the cheapest traditional supermarket:

March 2023

Aldi was the cheapest overall, with a basket of 41 items costing £72.54: 

Asda was cheapest for a big trolley of 137 items:

February 2023

Aldi was cheapest for a basket of 43 items:

Asda was cheapest for a trolley of 139 items:

January 2023

Aldi was the cheapest supermarket for a basket of 45 groceries:

For a big trolley of 144 items, Asda was cheapest:

Cheapest supermarket of 2022

According to our analysis, Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in 2022.

The discounter was the cheapest in our analysis for seven out of 12 months in 2022, which was more than any other supermarket.

Lidl wasn’t far behind, coming out cheapest in the first five months of the year. 

Across the seven months that Aldi was the ‘cheapest supermarket of the month’, the average difference was £1.59 compared with Lidl.

Asda was the cheapest of the non-discounters, coming out on top every month across 2022.  

Cheapest supermarket of 2021

According to our research, Aldi was the cheapest supermarket in 2021. 

It won the ‘cheapest supermarket of the month’ title six times that year – more than any other supermarket. Lidl came top for five months and, for one month, the two discounters were tied.

At the other end of the scale, Waitrose was most expensive each month.

Cheapest supermarket of 2020

Lidl was the cheapest supermarket in 2020. The discounter was just 34p cheaper than its nearest rival Aldi for our trolley of 45 branded and own-label groceries. 

It was £26.02 cheaper than the most expensive supermarket, Waitrose.

Cheapest supermarkets 2014-2019

Prior to 2020 we were unable to include Aldi and Lidl in our analysis, and only looked at Asda, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. The overall cheapest supermarkets for each year between 2014 and 2019 were:

  • 2019: Sainsbury’s
  • 2018: Morrisons
  • 2017: Morrisons
  • 2016: Asda
  • 2015: Asda
  • 2014: Asda
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