We reveal whether Aldi or Lidl was the cheapest supermarket overall – as well as which is the supermarket to beat for the lowest-priced big shop
Aldi was the UK’s cheapest supermarket in June – beating Lidl’s loyalty prices by just 35p.
We compared the prices of 79 popular grocery items and found that both Aldi and Lidl (with and without loyalty prices) were cheaper than shopping at Asda, Tesco with a Clubcard or Sainsbury’s with a Nectar card.
Read on to find out where was priciest, plus how the supermarkets compared on a much bigger list of 196 products including more branded items.
Throughout June, we checked the prices of 79 popular branded and own-brand groceries, including Hovis sliced bread, milk and cheese, at eight of the UK’s biggest supermarkets to see how they compared.
The chart shows how much our shopping cost on average:
Aldi was the cheapest overall for our shop, beating rival discounter Lidl by just 35p if you had a Lidl Plus card, or 37p if not.
The next cheapest was Asda, which doesn’t offer loyalty prices in the same way as the others. It was 10% more than Aldi for our shopping list.
And shopping at Tesco without a loyalty card was still cheaper than shopping at Morrisons with one.
Sainsbury’s was running Nectar price promotions on 19 items on our list, while Tesco had Clubcard prices on 14. Meanwhile, Morrisons had 3 More Card discounts on items in our basket, and Lidl had one item on our list with a loyalty discount.
Waitrose also offers some loyalty prices to members, but there were none for items on our shopping list this month. It was the priciest supermarket again this month, averaging £178.64 – that’s £47.12 (or 36%) more than Aldi.
When we looked at a much larger selection (196 items), including more branded groceries, there were bigger savings with the loyalty schemes.
Asda came out cheapest for this for the sixth month in a row, beating Tesco with a Clubcard by more than £8.
Tesco with a Clubcard – which had loyalty prices on 85 of the items – was the second cheapest, followed by Sainsbury’s with Nectar and Morrisons with More.
Waitrose was most expensive again, at £554.68 – 14% more than Asda.
We couldn’t include Aldi or Lidl here as they didn’t stock all the branded items on our list.
You’ll pay a lot more if you stock up at Morrisons, Sainsbury’s or Tesco without a loyalty card. For Sainsbury’s, there was an almost £38 difference for non-loyalty shoppers.
For shoppers without a Nectar card, Sainsbury’s was the second most expensive after Waitrose.
Based on our smaller list of products, having a loyalty card would save an average of 0.02% at Lidl, 0.3% at Morrisons, 1.7% at Tesco and 3.7% at Sainsbury’s over the month.
But you’d still save even more money by switching to Aldi.
For our longer list, which included more branded groceries and a wider selection of items with loyalty discounts, the savings were much more substantial – 1% at Morrisons, 7.22% at Tesco and 7.49% at Sainsbury’s.
Shopping at Asda, even without a loyalty card, would still save you money, though.
The discounts offered by loyalty cards may sound good. But that’s only if you can access them. Our research has found millions of people can’t access loyalty promotions because they’re not eligible to join supermarket member schemes due to their age, lack of address or difficulties with digital access.
We think some supermarkets could do more to ensure certain groups of shoppers, such as those without a smartphone or those who are under 18, can access – or know how they can access – loyalty prices.
Annual grocery price inflation jumped to 4.7% in the four weeks to 15 June, according to market analysts Kantar. That’s up from 4.1% in May, and is the highest level since February 2024.
The sunny weather tempted people to the shops – footfall was the highest recorded by Kantar since March 2020 – and sales of fresh fruit were high. Shoppers bought 2,400 packs of strawberries every minute in the four weeks to 15 June.
Prices are rising faster for items such as chocolate, biscuits and butters and spreads, according to our inflation tracker. Cereals and crisps have the lowest inflation.
We check the prices of hundreds of grocery items at eight major supermarkets, 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 one’s average total price.
Our shopping list comprises the country’s most popular and widely available groceries, based on extensive market analysis.
It includes branded items such as Cathedral City cheddar and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, as well as own-brand products such as potatoes and baked beans.
Own-brand items won’t be identical across supermarkets, but we’ve ensured everything we’ve compared is as similar as possible, based on several factors, including quality and weight.
We include special offers but not multibuy discounts.
We are 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 are unable to include discounts that are personalised to selected members, and we can’t factor in points or other rewards as these vary from customer to customer and don’t always have a quantifiable monetary value.
