Asda is this week's cheapest retailer as well as the winner of our Top Store award - a double whammy that has helped it scoop the coveted title of cheapest retailer for the tenth time in a row (see p26). But there will be no problem if Asda's top brass shed tears of joy. The £44.92 basket contained Kleenex for Men tissues for more than a pound cheaper than at any of the other retailers - a saving that helped clinch first place. Asda's prices for red wine and frozen garlic baguettes were also the most competitive. Morrisons, which picked up this year's The Grocer 33 availability prize, provided a £46.68 basket to take second place. It largely matched Asda's prices but those tissues were its downfall - Kleenex for Men and own-label toilet tissue were significantly more expensive than at Asda. Tesco's £47.15 basket does not do the retailer's close competition with Asda over the year adequate justice. By raising the price of the loose apples from 48p last week to 99p, Tesco surrendered second position to Morrisons. Sainsbury's recent fierce contestation for the position of cheapest retailer died down this week and it settled back to the familiar environment of fourth place. Its 4-pack of Stella Artois was the most expensive on the list - 9p more than Waitrose's price - and added weight to its £47.81 total. Although Somerfield's new potatoes were 50p more than the price Waitrose charged, it escaped being the most expensive retailer with its fifth-placed £52.75 basket. Waitrose's basket was £55.04. It offered its own-label beef braising steak for £8.29, the most expensive on the survey by a significant margin, and more importantly, £1.30 more than Somerfield's equivalent. n The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that last week's totals were inaccurate. The error was a one-off and did not affect the retailers' positions in either last week's survey or the end-of-year review. ESA, which provides The Grocer with the data each week, has rectified the problem.

Topics