The Truth About UK Supermarket Price Comparisons (Tesco vs Sainsbury's vs Aldi)
Tesco's Aldi Price Match looks generous. We compared 50 staple items across five UK supermarkets to see how much of the comparison is real and how much is selective.
By The Assistant De Venté Editors
"Aldi Price Match" stickers cover an enormous slab of Tesco's shop. Sainsbury's runs a similar scheme. Morrisons matches Aldi on around 200 lines. Are these schemes genuine, or are they price-comparison theatre on a few hero SKUs while the rest of the basket creeps up?
Our test
50 grocery staples, six UK supermarkets, one Tuesday morning. We checked: Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl. We compared like-for-like brands where possible and store-brand equivalents where not.
Findings
Aldi was cheapest on 31 of 50 items. Lidl was cheapest on 9. Tesco (with Clubcard prices) on 7. Sainsbury's (Nectar prices) on 2. Asda and Morrisons rounded out the rest.
Tesco's Aldi Price Match held up on 47 of 47 matched SKUs. The scheme is genuine where it claims to operate. But the matched SKUs are about a third of the average shop. The rest of the basket was on average 12% more expensive than Aldi.
Sainsbury's Nectar Prices were on average 8% above non-Nectar pricing for the same products elsewhere — i.e. Nectar pricing often brings Sainsbury's roughly in line with Asda's regular price, not below.
The brand-vs-own-label trap
Aldi's wins concentrate in own-label. When you shop branded — Heinz, Coca-Cola, Andrex — the price gap between Aldi and Tesco shrinks to near zero, sometimes inverts. A "brand-led" basket negates most of Aldi's advantage.
Loyalty schemes worth using
- Tesco Clubcard: genuinely useful, especially for fuel and partner redemptions (Pizza Express, etc.).
- Nectar (Sainsbury's): marginal on grocery; better on bonus point offers.
- Lidl Plus: app-based coupons; rewards are small but real.
- Aldi: no scheme. Prices already low.
The big picture
The cheapest weekly shop, before time costs, is Aldi for own-label + a small Tesco/Sainsbury's top-up for the brands Aldi doesn't carry. The "split shop" saves the average family £15–£25 a week vs a single big-four shop.
Bottom line
Price-match schemes are genuine but limited to a curated set of SKUs. Don't assume a Tesco basket equals an Aldi one. The split shop wins. And always check store-brand quality before you assume the brand is worth the markup — most are blind-test-indistinguishable.