Tesco topples Asda for the first time ever to win The Grocer 33 Award for Price

Winner: Tesco

Drumroll please, and the winner is… Tesco. Yes, you are reading this correctly: for the first time since the birth of the Grocer 33 back in 1997, we have a new name on this award.

Tesco has finally toppled Asda thanks to its Clubcard Prices and our belief that this award should reflect the impact of loyalty prices, based on what the majority of shoppers will actually pay for the items on our shopping list.

In April, Tesco reported that 82% of its transactions involved a Clubcard. It was clear that as more supermarkets were heading down the loyalty pricing route, the Grocer 33 should reflect this.

As a result, Tesco emerged as a clear leader across the traditional supermarkets. It provided the cheapest basket in 20 of the 49 weeks that we ran the mystery shopping survey.

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This was seven more than Asda, which managed to resist the pressure from rival loyalty prices on 13 occasions.

While Tesco has Clubcard Prices, Sainsbury’s Nectar Prices has also played a major role in driving its competitiveness. Sainsbury’s came in as the cheapest retailer 10 times.

We are yet to see any impact from Morrisons More Card in terms of loyalty prices, but the Bradford-based retailer did pull off two wins.

Of course, the discounters cannot be overlooked as our four super Grocer 33s showed. Lidl came in cheapest for three of these, with Aldi cheapest for the other one.