Easter supermarket shop: Asda and Aldi in battle to be cheapest

Easter food shopping can be an expensive business. When you have endless presents to buy, and a huge roast meal to cook for your hungry family, it's easy to spend a small fortune in the supermarket.

Fortunately, however, you don't have to break the bank, because it is possible to buy your Easter shopping on a budget. We reveal the cheapest supermarkets for your Easter shop.

The good news is that prices are falling across the board. As the recent inflation figures show, food prices fell 3.3% over the past 12 months, as the supermarkets battled to squeeze prices even harder. It means that you'll be spending less on Easter this year, as even the Easter eggs will be cheaper.

Eggs

Traditionally the chocolate egg market tends to be fairly uniform, with the supermarkets running similar deals to one another. This year, however, there are some big differences, and you can easily spend 50% more on exactly the same egg, depending on where you shop.

Unfortunately, no one supermarket is cheapest across the board, so the only way to be sure of getting the best deal is by searching Mysupermarket.co.uk for your favourite brand, and checking the price at each of the big players.

It's worth taking the time to do this, because there are some striking differences. The Cadbury Creme Egg (178g), for example, costs £1.50 at Tesco, £1.25 at Sainsbury's and £1 at Asda. Meanwhile, a Cadbury Heroes egg (274g) is £3 at Tesco and Sainsbury's and either £5 or 3 for £10 at Asda.
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Easter lunch

The cost of the food for the big Easter lunch shows a clearer trend. We researched the cost of a basket of typical ingredients at Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Aldi (using today's figures from Mysupermarket), and two supermarkets stood out as particularly cheap: Asda and Aldi. Tesco, meanwhile, was the most expensive in our research, followed by Sainsbury's.

Asda offers the cheapest hot cross buns of all, and the cheapest leg of lamb - which puts it firmly in the race to be the cheapest supermarket for Easter.

Its closest contender for the title is Aldi. At the moment it hasn't released the price of a leg of lamb, and this will make all the difference. If Aldi manages to match the Asda price, it will race away with the title of the cheapest for Easter. If it fails, and gets closer to the Tesco price for lamb, then Asda will take the title.

We were in the same position at Christmas, and when Aldi finally announced its turkey prices it trounced the opposition. It seems most likely, therefore, that Aldi will take the tile of the cheapest supermarket for your Easter food shopping.

Asda
6 hot cross buns 75p
1 kg leg of lamb £7.50
Own-brand mint sauce £1 (36p per 100g)
Own-brand gravy granules for meat 79p (200g)
New potatoes 99p (500g)
Carrots 57p (1kg)
Asparagus £1.65 (250g)

Total £12.61

Tesco
6 hot cross buns £1
1kg leg of lamb £10
Own-brand mint sauce 59p (32p per 100g)
Own-brand gravy granules for meat 80p (200g)
Baby potatoes (1kg) 98p (49p per 500g)
Carrots (1kg) 60p
Asparagus (250g) £1.65

Total £15.62

Sainsbury's
6 hot cross buns £1
1kg leg of lamb £10
Own-brand mint sauce 80p (32p per 100g)
Own-brand gravy granules for meat 70p (82p per 200g)
Baby potatoes (1kg) £1 (50p per 500g)
Carrots (1kg) 55p
Asparagus (250g) £1.60

Total £15.27

Morrisons
6 hot cross buns £1.19
1kg leg of lamb £9.99
Own-brand mint sauce 65p (36p per 100g)
Own-brand gravy granules for meat £1.49 (30p per 200g)
Baby potatoes (500g) 76p
Carrots (1kg) 49p
Asparagus (250g) £1.65

Total £14.74

Aldi
6 hot cross buns 85p
Leg of lamb (on sale 30 March)
Own-brand mint sauce 49p (27p per 100g)
Own-brand gravy granules for meat 75p (50p per 200g)
'Salad' potatoes (1kg) 89p (45p per 500g)
Carrots (1kg) 49p
Asparagus 69p (£1.15 per 250g)

Total - assuming Aldi matches Asda on price for lamb - £11.21
Total - assuming Aldi matches Tesco on price for lamb £13.71

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