Asda has emerged as the cheapest supermarket for Christmas shopping, narrowly beating Morrisons, in The Grocer 33's first-ever Christmas pricing survey. Its £112.92 Christmas trolley was just 52p cheaper than its nearest rival's in the survey, which compared the prices of festive food, drink and non-food across the big four for the first time. Asda, which last month announced a £150m festive price-cutting programme, offered many of the cheapest Christmas dinner items, including the best value whole frozen turkey at £7, almost £1 less than Morrisons' £7.99 bird. Its Bisto gravy granules and Brussels sprouts were also the cheapest, although Tesco matched Asda's 77p price for Paxo sage & onion stuffing and Morrisons sold the cheapest Aunt Bessie's crispy roast potatoes at 82p. All four retailers stocked a 454g Christmas pudding for only 98p. Tesco offered the most competitively priced after-dinner drinks. It matched Asda and Sainsbury's on Cockburn's Port at £8.51 and provided the cheapest Harveys Bristol Cream sherry at £4.99. It was a close-run contest on key festive non-food items, with Asda selling the cheapest paper napkins (74p), Christmas crackers (£4.96) and tinsel (94p). However, for the big-ticket items, Morrisons provided the biggest price differentials, with the cheapest Transformers DVD at £9, £3.74 less than Asda, and Leona Lewis's album, Spirit, at £7.99, which was £1.78 less than the other retailers. Despite its more premium price position, Sainsbury's fared comparatively well in entertainment and had the second-cheapest Transformers DVD at £9.57. Although Sainsbury's had the most expensive trolley total at £124.02, it undercut Asda's prices on four items, including wrapping paper (£1.50 vs £1.94). Asda chief executive Andy Bond said he was delighted to have produced the cheapest trolley. "Asda is committed to offering the lowest prices throughout the year," he said. "At Christmas people's budgets are really stretched so we've slashed the prices of more than 2,500 products." The Christmas G33 p20

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