Asda has pulled off a tricky balancing act between price hikes and price cuts to claim its ninth consecutive award for cheapest retailer, with a £39.38 basket. One of the sharpest price rises was on red seedless grapes, which pushed up the basket totals of Asda, Tesco and Somerfield. Asda and Morrisons increased the price of own label ice cream by 30p and 34p respectively. But it counteracted the impact of the raft of price hikes by cutting the price of pork chops by 78p and slashing the price of its Gillette Mach 3 razors to more than £1 less than any other retailer at £3.97. Morrisons fended off competition from Tesco, with a £41.48 basket, despite a number of price increases including an 8p hike on the price of its dried spaghetti to 49p, the most expensive on the list. Like Asda, it cut the price of pork chops, by 88p, and it also offered the cheapest Whiskas catfood and bagged iceberg lettuce. However, the gap between Tesco and Morrisons narrowed this week after Tesco cut the price of tuna chunks, own label thick pork sausages and prepacked baking potatoes. It also lowered the price of broccoli from £1.78 to £1.38 to match Asda's price. Its £41.86 basket included the cheapest Weetabix. Sainsbury's came fourth with a £42.82 basket. Its biggest price change was a 38p cut to parsnips, but it also knocked 9p off tuna. The gap between our two most expensive retailers was also tighter this week but Somerfield clinched fifth place after providing Cadbury Dairy Milk and a Hovis loaf for 20p less than Asda. Its £48.43 basket also had the cheapest ice cream. In raising the price of grapes by 50p, Somerfield presented Waitrose with an opportunity to have a week off from its usual most expensive retailer position.But in the end, Waitrose's basket was 22p more, partly because it had added 33p to the price of its ice cream. Indeed, Waitrose offered 11 of the priciest items on the list - nine of which were own label products.

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