After a solid 10 weeks as the cheapest grocery retailer, Asda has been trumped by Tesco. Tesco beat its rival with a basket that was 27p cheaper than Asda's, at £45.05. Almost all the differential was down to the price of cucumbers, Tesco's costing just 42p - 32p less than at Asda. Though Asda undercut Tesco on the price of Eights and garlic baguettes, it raised the price of its orange juice by 19p, and this coupled with the price of its cucumbers relegated it to second place. Morrisons leap-frogged Sainsbury's to third position this week with a £45.49 basket. It pulled off the cheaper basket by lowering the price of its bananas by 20% from the previous week and offering broccoli 19p cheaper than its nearest rivals. It strived to match Tesco and Asda's prices but could not offer the same value for items such as After Eights mints and white seedless grapes. Sainsbury's found itself in the more expensive half of the survey, with a £46.05 basket. Though things could have been worse. Its cucumbers were the joint-cheapest with Tesco at 42p. And the price of its broccoli was 41p lower than last week, at £1.09 offering the best value on the list. Somerfield and Waitrose have been tussling for the position of fifth-cheapest retailer for a long time now. However, Somerfield's decision to cut prices across many of its groceries this week enabled it to snatch fifth place with a £52.08 basket. Once again, broccoli was the focus of price cuts and was 42p cheaper than last week. Despite these efforts, Somerfield had the single most expensive price for 17 of the items on the list, however. Waitrose own-label meat products pushed up the price of its basket up to £52.36 - £6.86 more expensive than Tesco's. At £1.35, its Scotch eggs were nearly double the price of those at most of the other retailers. The beef braising steak was 99p more than Somerfield - its nearest rival. However, branded foods such as Birds Eye garden peas were the same price as at Tesco.
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