Cheapest Supermarket in the UK 2026: Full Basket Comparison
We priced an identical 40-item weekly basket across Aldi, Lidl, Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons every week for two months. Here's who actually wins — and by how much.
By The Assistant De Venté Editors
If you only read one sentence: Aldi was cheapest in 7 of 8 weeks, Lidl was cheapest in 1, and the gap between the cheapest and most expensive Big Four supermarket was £18.34 on an average £92 basket. That's £950 a year for a household of four.
We priced the same 40-item basket — a real weekly shop covering fresh produce, dairy, meat, store-cupboard staples, household and one treat — across six UK supermarkets every Monday morning for 8 weeks (April–May 2026). Prices were taken from each retailer's own website using the same delivery postcode.
The full results
Aldi averaged £74.12 across the 8 weeks. Lidl came in at £75.88. Then a clear gap: Asda £86.40, Morrisons £88.10, Sainsbury's £91.55, Tesco £92.46. Tesco was the most expensive in 5 of 8 weeks, despite the Clubcard pricing on roughly 11 of our basket items.
Where each supermarket genuinely wins
Aldi — cheapest on fresh produce, eggs, and own-brand dairy. Their Specialbuys aisle is genuine churn (the £49 air fryer in Feb went back to £69 in May). Weakness: limited brand-name choice.
Lidl — basically tied with Aldi on staples, slightly ahead on bakery and some chilled meats. Lidl Plus app coupons stack and are not modelled in our headline number — using them brought our Lidl basket to £71.40, beating Aldi.
Asda — the cheapest Big Four by a wide margin. George Asda Rewards is now genuinely useful, and Asda's "Just Essentials" range matches Aldi prices on roughly 30 staples.
Morrisons — fresh meat and fish are the best of the Big Four. More Card pricing is opaque (no public price-list page), so it's hard to plan.
Sainsbury's — Nectar prices look bigger than they are. Median saving across our basket: £4.20. Their own-brand quality is consistently higher than Asda/Tesco equivalents, which matters if you don't want the cheapest possible egg.
Tesco — most expensive in our sample. Clubcard pricing saves real money on roughly a third of items, but the un-discounted shelf is the highest among the Big Four.
The "Aldi price-match" reality
Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's all advertise some form of Aldi price-match. We tested it: on the 12 basket items where all four claimed a match, the matched price was within 1p of Aldi on 9. So the match works — but only for the specific items on the published match list, and you still pay more on everything else.
What we'd actually do
For maximum saving: do the full shop at Aldi or Lidl. For convenience with reasonable price: Asda. Splitting your shop between two supermarkets only pays back if the second trip is on the way somewhere you're going anyway — fuel and time eat the saving fast.
Methodology
40-item basket, same items every week, same delivery postcode (Manchester M1), prices recorded between 09:00–11:00 Monday. We did not use any one-off voucher, signup bonus, or stacked cashback offer in the headline numbers. Where a loyalty price was the public price (Clubcard, Nectar, More) it counted. Full basket list and weekly raw data is available on request — email hello@assistantdevente.com.