Which? names the cheapest supermarket of the year and it is not who you might think

Aldi and Lidl were neck and neck in the race to be the best value for money
The difference between a trolleyfull of goods at the most expensive and the cheapest supermarkets was more than £40 in 2023
Aaron Chown/PA Wire
Sian Baldwin10 January 2024

Budget supermarkets battled throughout last year to be named the UK's cheapest, as food prices in the shops continued to rise.

Aldi and Lidl spent every month trying to be named as the best value for money but now the ultimate winner can be revealed.

Aldi is the cheapest supermarket of 2023, according to analysis into thousands of grocery prices carried out by comparison website Which?. It sent secret shoppers to all the UK's supermarkets each month to fill a basket with everyday essentials such as fruit, bread and cheese and also shop for a trolley load of goods.

Aldi was cheapest for a basket 11 out of 12 months, beaten just once by Lidl, leading Which? to name it the cheapest supermarket of the year. Lidl beat Aldi in October; however, the price difference between them month on month averaged out to about £1.33.

The most expensive for 2023 was Waitrose, where shoppers would have paid the most for a small basket of common essentials every single month last year. It was also the most expensive in the larger trolley analysis for every month except September, when Sainsbury's was priciest.

For a big trolley shop, Asda was the cheapest: a title it's claimed every month since January 2020 except for July 2023, when Morrisons undercut it. A trolley of food cost on average £326.77 at Asda, comfortably beating next-cheapest Morrisons by nearly £10.

A Which? spokesman said: "Our analysis also found that Waitrose was £41.02 pricier than Asda on average, with our big shop costing £367.79 at the high-end supermarket."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in