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- Food price barometer: which supermarkets are cheapest?
The average household has seen a 19.1% jump to the cost of their food shop, according to the Office for National Statistics. With living costs still high, many of us looking at ways to keep our food costs down.
Some UK supermarkets are more expensive than others, but with prices rising across the board, you might be surprised to see how the cost of popular items compare.
Some UK supermarkets are more expensive than others, but with prices rising across the board, you might be surprised to see how the cost of popular items compare.
We’ve looked at the prices of the most frequently bought items from the top UK supermarkets to find out the cheapest places to shop. We’ll update this list once a month, so you can check back whenever you want to find the latest prices.
What’s on the list?
For all of the items we’ve listed, we’ve chosen supermarket’s own brand products wherever possible, only replacing these with a branded product if it’s cheaper, or if there’s no alternative.
Here’s the list:
Item | Size | |
Milk | Semi skimmed | 2 pint bottle |
Butter | Salted | 250g |
Yoghurt | Full fat – Greek style | 500g |
Cheese | Mature | 400g |
Apples | Braeburn | 6 pack |
Oranges | Easy peeler | 600g |
Bananas | Loose | 5 pack |
Celery | Whole head | 1 Head |
Carrots | Bag | 1kg |
Onions | Brown | 1kg |
Tomatoes | Salad tomatoes | 6 pack |
Bread | White medium sliced loaf | 800g |
Pasta | Penne | 500g |
Chickpeas | tinned in water | 400g |
Rice | Long grain white rice | 1kg |
Eggs | Medium – Free range | 6 pack |
Chicken breast | Skinless | 2 fillets |
Salmon fillet | Boneless | 2 fillets |
Beef mince | 5% fat | 500g |
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Which supermarket is cheapest this month?
This month, the cheapest supermarket overall was Lidl, with our list of items coming in at a total of £24.48.
Here’s the total amount for the items in each supermarket:

Supermarket | Basket total – least to most expensive |
Lidl | £24.48 |
Aldi | £24.53 |
Tesco | £26.65 |
Sainsburys | £27.68 |
Morrisons | £28.91 |
Asda | £29.46 |
Waitrose | £36.15 |
Co-op | £36.50 |
Iceland | £36.79 |
M&S | £37.82 |
Which supermarket has the cheapest items?
While Lidl came in cheapest, it didn’t have the cheapest items across the board. So while this supermarket offers the biggest savings on items like as butter, cheese and onions were cheaper elsewhere.
However, while visiting each supermarket to buy the following items at the cheapest price the cost of your shop would only fall to £22.69. which is only £1.79 cheaper than Lidl. When you’ve factored in possible travel costs, it’s unlikely that this would be a cost-effective option.
Here, we look at which supermarket had the cheapest items this week:
Item | Lowest Price | Supermarket |
Milk | £1.19 | Aldi |
Butter | £1.80 | Waitrose |
Yoghurt | £0.69 | Aldi |
Cheese | £2.19 | Aldi |
Apples | £0.90 | Morrisons |
Oranges | £0.95 | Asda, Lidl |
Bananas | £0.85 | Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Lidl |
Celery | £0.57 | Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Lidl |
Carrots | £0.40 | Morrisons, Sainsbury’s |
Onions | £0.55 | Tesco |
Tomatoes | £0.85 | Tesco, Waitrose, Aldi |
Bread | £0.39 | Tesco |
Pasta | £0.41 | Tesco, Aldi, Lidl |
Chickpeas | £0.55 | Tesco |
Rice | £0.48 | Lidl |
Eggs | £1.25 | Waitrose |
Chicken | £2.29 | Aldi, Lidl |
Salmon | £2.99 | Lidl |
Beef | £3.39 | Tesco, Aldi |
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Which supermarket has the most expensive items?
While few of us will be surprised that Marks & Spencer and Waitrose are usually the most expensive, it might shock you to see Iceland making multiple appearances on this list.
Here, we look at which supermarket had the most expensive items this week, and how much more they were compared to the lowest price:
Item | Highest Price | Difference from cheapest price | Supermarket |
Milk | £1.40 | £0.21 | Co-op |
Butter | £2.20 | £0.40 | Co-op |
Yoghurt | £1.70 | £1.01 | Co-op |
Cheese | £3.80 | £1.61 | Iceland |
Apples | £1.80 | £0.90 | Co-op |
Oranges | £2.19 | £1.24 | Iceland |
Bananas | £1.20 | £0.35 | Marks & Spencer |
Celery | £1.30 | £0.73 | Co-op |
Carrots | £1.00 | £0.60 | Co-op |
Onions | £1.35 | £0.80 | Marks & Spencer |
Tomatoes | £2.10 | £1.25 | Marks & Spencer |
Bread | £0.95 | £0.56 | Co-op |
Pasta | £1.17 | £0.76 | Marks & Spencer |
Chickpeas | £1.10 | £0.55 | Co-op |
Rice | £2.40 | £1.92 | Waitrose |
Eggs | £1.85 | £0.60 | Marks & Spencer |
Chicken | £4.40 | £2.11 | Waitrose |
Salmon | £6.25 | £3.26 | Marks & Spencer |
Beef | £6.25 | £2.86 | Waitrose |
Finally…
While shopping around definitely pays off in some cases, if you’re grabbing a pint of milk or a bag of onions, rest assured that the difference in cost between these items from different supermarkets isn’t likely to break the bank. If you’re looking for other ways to keep food costs down, have a look at our articles 21 ways to save money on your food bills, 5 ways to cut energy costs when you cook and 12 inflation-busting foods.
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Katherine Young is a Content Manager at Rest Less and joined the team in 2021. Since then she’s written about a range of personal finance topics, but really enjoys getting into the nitty gritty of topics like the gender pension gap, savings, and everyday money-saving ideas. Katherine graduated with a degree in English Literature from Aberystwyth University, and now lives in South London with her husband.
Katherine is a keen foodie. When she's not browsing food markets or hunting down the best food in London, she spends her spare time painting, reading fantasy fiction and travelling.
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Pension advice can help you get the most out of your retirement income, helping you on your way to a secure financial future. If you have more than £75k in pension savings, take the first step by arranging a free, no-obligation initial consultation with an expert from Aviva Financial Advice. Any recommendations advisers make will be for products from Aviva and other carefully selected partners. There’s no obligation, but if they feel you’d benefit from paid financial advice, they’ll go over how that works and the charges involved. Capital at risk.