It’s not cheap these days, Christmas dinner. Especially if you do it in style. But supermarkets and suppliers are working their socks off to keep prices down.
The cost of a fresh, free-range turkey crown and a selection of other premium goods – including vintage champagne, deluxe Christmas pud, luxury crackers, chocolate truffles and all the trimmings of course – cost an average of £217.80 in the second in our series of Christmas 33 price comparison surveys.
That’s 0.1% less than last year. But there was huge variation in terms of inflation on the items – and between the supermarkets.
The price of the turkey, tradtionally the centrepiece of Christmas dinner, was just 1% more expensive year on year. A 2.5kg bird will set shoppers back £46.50 on average. That’s below the rate of inflation.
But while the price of the brussel sprouts (-9%) has fallen, the cost of some of the other vegetables increased: most notably the King Edward potatoes (30%), but also the red cabbage (15%) and chantenay carrots (6%).
There was also a steep increase in the price of the Tyrrells crisps (31%), KP nuts (13%), dates (14%) and chestnuts (11%), as well as the tempura prawns (13%).
On the other hand, the vintage champagne (-5%), mince pies (-7%), Christmas pudding (-4%) and smoked salmon (-10%) all fell in price.
As with our budget Christmas 33 price comparison, Tesco was cheapest, with its trolley of luxury items costing £195.76. That included a whopping £34.04 (17.4%) discount from its Clubcard Prices loyalty card programme and 23 promotions (19 of them on price). It offered the cheapest price on 20 items, six of them exclusively, including the mince pies, Christmas pudding and vintage champagne.
Tesco was also the only supermarket whose basket was cheaper year on year, with a saving of £14.27 (or 7.3%).
The savings also meant Tesco was a sizeable £11.64 cheaper than nearest rival Morrisons, which came in at £207.40. The impact of the More loyalty card price promotions was limited to £14.67. Morrisons was exclusively cheapest on 13 items and exclusively so on four: the tempura prawns, turkey gravy, carrots and yule log. Inflation on the 33 items was up just 0.2%.
If we didn’t include loyalty prices in our survey, Asda’s £211.48 trolley would have been the cheapest shop. But with the vast majority of shoppers using their loyalty cards to extract the best value – in return for their data – it’s missing a trick. It was cheapest on 17 items but only four of them exclusively. Inflation on the basket was up 2.5%.
Sainsbury’s was relatively uncompetitive. Despite £17.69 in savings from its Nectar Prices loyalty scheme, its £218.32 basket was over £22 more expensive than Tesco’s, with the fresh turkey crown almost £8 more expensive than the Tesco and Asda birds.
But Waitrose was miles off the pace. In fact the £255.97 bill was 3.3% more expensive year on year, including a punchy price hike for the Christmas turkey, up 14%. Not a total to feel good about – for customers or new chairman Jason Tarry for that matter. The equivalent basket at Tesco, his old stomping ground, was more than £60 cheaper.
Correction: the price of the turkey crown has been restated for all the supermarkets owing to a pro-rating error in the original article. This means we understated the total price of the luxury Christmas 33 for each of the supermarkets but it did not impact the overall winner (Tesco).
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