Are supermarket prices rising? Use our interactive tool to check value range products costs over time

Struggling families have faced soaring prices for budget food and drink items as the cost of living crisis has taken hold in the UK, with supermarkets hiking prices on two-thirds of value range products in the last six months.

From cheap cooking bacon at Sainsbury’s to marmalade at Tesco, tinned chilli at Asda to long life milk at Morrisons, shoppers who rely on value range items have seen prices rise by as much as 177% between April and October.

The findings have come from a major price tracking project at NationalWorld, which has gathered monthly online price snapshots for over 750 budget grocery products at Aldi, Asda, Morissons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

Now we have created an interactive chart so you can look up the products your household buys, to see how prices have changed over the last six months.

What value range products are included?

NationalWorld’s supermarket price tracker includes the dedicated value ranges across the five major supermarkets. In the case of Morrisons, Aldi, and Asda, this includes one or two brands: Morrisons Savers, Aldi Everyday Essentials, and Asda Smart Price and Farm Stores, which have been largely replaced by Asda Just Essentials in recent months.

At Tesco and Sainsbury’s there are a range of ‘tertiary’ brands which replaced the Tesco Value and Sainsbury’s Basics ranges.

At Tesco, there are the following brands:

• Stockwell and Co (food cupboard items) 
• Ms Molly’s (cakes, chocolate and desserts)
• Suntrail Farms (fruit)
• Hearty Food Co. (processed foods and ready meals)
• Redmere Farms (veg)
• Eastman’s (deli items)
• Creamfields (dairy products)
• Springforce (cleaning items)
• Nightingale Farms (salad items)
• Grower’s Harvest (preserved fruit and vegetables)
• H W Nevill’s (bakery)
• Rosedene Farms (fruit)
• Willow Farm (chicken)
• Woodside Farms (pork)
• Butcher’s Choice (frozen meat) 

The Sainsbury’s brands are:

• J. James and Family (meat/fish)
• Daily’s (bread and cereal) 
• Hubbard’s Foodstore (food cupboard items)
• Lovett’s (chocolate, desserts and cakes)
• House247 (cleaning items)
• Allcroft’s (deli products) 
• Mary Ann’s (dairy)
• Stamford Street (processed foods and ready meals)
• The Greengrocer (frozen veg) 
• Just Snax (crisps and nuts)

There are over 750 items in our basket of products. We have taken a price snapshot on the first Monday of the month between April and October. Prices are not always displayed, if the product is out of stock or has been temporarily removed from the store’s website. When this happens there is a gap in the timeseries.

Which products have become more expensive?

We were able to gather price information for 577 products in April and October. During that time, 368 of them (64%) saw price rises. Only 51 saw price decreases, and the rest stayed the same.

The product with the single biggest price rise was a pack of cooking bacon from Sainsbury’s, which rose by 177%, from 75p to £2.08. NationalWorld previously highlighted how irate shoppers had slammed the company for “making life harder in hard enough times” over the price hike.

The second biggest price rise was for Sainsbury’s House247 laundry liquid (up 100%) the Tesco Stockwell and Co marmalade (up 93%).

You can look up the names of all the products included in our analysis in the line chart above. Products that only had price information for two out of the six months have been excluded. Can’t see the chart? Click here to open it in a new window.

Which shop has put prices up by the most?

According to our analysis, Morrisons put prices up by the biggest margin between April and October, at 21.7%. This excluded all items that decreased in price or saw no change, so is not a measure of inflation at Morrisons. It also imposed price rises on the biggest proportion of its products.

However, there is only a small sample of products at Morrisons, of 22 items. When we started our price tracker in April, there were only 46 products available. It then expanded its range. However, many products have sinc been discontinued (including some of the new products) or have been out of stock for long periods, so very few could be compared across both April and October.

Aldi has imposed price rises on the lowest proportion of its products (49%) while price rises at Asda have been the least steep, at 16.7% compared to an average of 19.1% (including just items that have become more expensive).

If you rely on value range items and have been struggling with rising prices, we want to hear from you. Email [email protected]