Cheapest supermarket 2022 revealed – Skint Dad

It’s a hotly debated topic and one that gets asked a lot in our supermarket savings community – where is the lowest priced place to shop?

The thing is, I don’t really think there is a one size fits all answer.

Sure, for ME, and the stuff I buy, one supermarket can work out cheaper.

However, we don’t have young kids, so save on the additional costs, and no one in the family has allergies or intolerances to food.

Just because the basket of food I buy one week is cheaper, the stuff you buy might work out more expensive.

Which is the cheapest supermarket in the UK?

Trying to use a bit of methodology, consumer group Which? has been monitoring prices of groceries across six major supermarkets (* that must have been a fun job *).

First, they made a shopping list of 49 items they thought would be in a typical shopping basket.

Their list included stuff like own label-bread, crisps, butter, cheese, cleaning products, pet food, soft drinks and other everyday items.

They then worked out the average price (including discounts but not multibuys) for each item every month and then compared it. 

So what did they find?

Without further ado, they found the lowest price supermarket of September 2022 … drum roll, please …

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Cheapest supermarket September 2022 – Aldi

Getting 48 items from Aldi added up to £75.61.

Lidl was the second cheapest at £77.45 and Asda in third place costing £84.87

Waitrose (maybe not so surprisingly) was the most expensive, costing £99.40.

You could clearly see how much food prices have been rising month on month. However, the prices have come down slightly from August 2022 to September 2022.

In previous months, Which compared around 20 items in each basket, but have increased the number of items they’re looking at. This makes it difficult to see, overall, how the monthly pricing is changing.

In March 2022, 21 items were compared, with the cheapest basket prices at £26.83. In April, with 18 items, it cost £25.92.

Each time they track food prices, the basket they compare changes. This is because they look to make sure products are available in every store. Foods compared included own-label free-range eggs and raspberries as well as branded products, including Chicago Town pizzas.

When you look at the prices on a monthly basis, you can see how much the prices have crept up over the year. And you can tell why it’s so difficult to budget for a grocery shop!

Bigger food shops

While the ranking shows the cost for smaller essential shops, there is also a comparison for a larger show with the original 48 items, plus another 101.

However, as some of the items they compare are branded, they do not include Lidl or Aldi.

If we took away branded foods (as I know a lot of people won’t have their whole trolley full of them), the average cost would be a lot less.

And, as Lidi and Aldi generally win each month for years for a smaller basket (see below for their track history), I’d hazard a guess they’d also lead this chart.

Again, June saw a far bigger comparison (156 in June vs 59 items compared in May)

Cheapest supermarket month on month 2022

Which? tracks the costs of items on a monthly basis.

Looking back, here are the cheapest supermarkets over the year:

January 2022 – Lidl – £24.78

February 2022 – Lidl – £24.21

March 2022 – Lidl – £26.83

April 2022 – Lidl – £25.92

May 2022 – Lidl – £23.55

June 2022 – Aldi – £75.61 (see the note above about comparison size)

July 2022 – Aldi – £74.23

August 2022 – Aldi – £76.24

September 2022 – Aldi – £75.61

Month on month – which supermarket is the cheapest in 2021?

Here are the supermarkets that were cheaper over 2021:

January 2021 – Aldi and Lidl were tied – £18.45

February 2021 – Lidl – £19.13

March 2021 – Lidl – £22.48

April 2021 – Aldi – £22.64

May 2021 – Lidl – £22.66

June 2021 – Aldi – £21.61

July 2021 – Aldi – £23.59

August 2021 – Lidl – £24.11

September – Aldi – £24.03

October – Aldi – £24.24

November – Aldi – £24.64

December – Lidl – £23.29

Cheapest supermarket UK 2020

In 2020, Lidl was named the cheapest place to shop.

It was 34p cheaper than its rival Aldi.

Ocado and Waitrose were at the bottom of the list as the most expensive supermarket.

Tracking on a month by month basis, Aldi looked like it was cheaper than Lidl. However, instead of using the monthly summaries, they tracked the 2020 lowest priced supermarket by items they could get hold of.

The basket used in the price comparison used 45 popular branded and own-label products, including Hovis bread, Knorr stock cubes, eggs, cucumber and tomatoes. 

UK’s cheapest supermarket 2019

As a price comparison of 53 items over the course of 2019, here’s how supermarkets stacked up:

For comparison, in 2018 the UK’s cheapest supermarket in their study was Morrisons, followed by Asda and then Sainsbury’s.