Guest retailer Iceland claimed a convincing Grocer 33 pricing win this week, bringing an end to Asda’s three-week winning run.
Iceland’s £59.97 total was £3.62 cheaper than Asda. It offered the lowest price for 13 lines, though only three of these - the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, diced beef and Head & Shoulders - were exclusively cheapest.
It does, however, show a continued focus on EDLP pricing at Iceland. A case in point is the Yorkshire Tea (see box, right). Asda was cheaper thanks to a promotion but Iceland’s average selling price this past year has been £1.42 lower.
It is also the frozen specialist’s second consecutive win, having also come in more than £3 cheaper than Asda in its last guest slot in July. It lost out to Asda on its two previous appearances.
Asda struggled to match Iceland despite seven exclusively cheapest lines. These included the mushrooms, petits pois, San Miguel beer as well as the tea. However, it was £1.80 more expensive than Iceland for the Ben & Jerry’s and £1.50 more for the Dettol.
Third-placed Morrisons was £3.87 more expensive than Iceland (just 25p more than Asda), with Sainsbury’s trailing £5.10 behind at £65.07, while Tesco was even further off the pace: its £67.38 total was £7.41 pricier despite the lowest price for 10 items and beating all comers on the Birds Eye peas, apples, lettuce and watermelon.
In fact Tesco was closer to Waitrose’s £70.06 total than it was to either Asda or Morrisons.
There were plenty of deals to be had for our shoppers this week. Tesco was the biggest promoter, with 12 of the 33 items on offer, closely followed by Morrisons and Waitrose with 11 each. Asda carried nine promotions, Iceland eight and Sainsbury’s had the fewest deals on seven.
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