Grocer Gold Awards 2022: Grocer 33 - price award

Winner: Asda

Asda’s dominance of the Grocer 33 price award has extended to 25 continuous years.

The Issa brothers and TDR Capital-owned supermarket provided the cheapest basket in 36 of our 50 weekly surveys in the past year, representing an improvement on the previous year when it bagged 33. However, there is growing evidence that a continuation of this trend is far from guaranteed.

In the past few months, as all retailers looked to stay on top of inflation on behalf of their customers, Asda has often increased prices at a higher rate than its supermarket rivals year on year. There is also the impact of Tesco’s Clubcard Prices initiative, which is now having an increasingly significant impact on our surveys. While our measure is based on shelf-edge prices, Tesco would have come out cheapest seven times had we factored in the discounts it offers exclusively to its loyalty card holders. This was particularly the case in the second half of the year, with six of these instances coming since February.

The flip side is that Tesco shoppers without a Clubcard are clearly losing out. The UK’s biggest retailer did not once come out cheapest based on its shelf-edge prices alone.

Morrisons bagged four cheapest baskets, down from seven last year, while Sainsbury’s seemed more competitive overall with four wins.

Aldi and Lidl both appeared three times and were comfortably cheapest on each occasion.