Where is fresh food cheapest? How the supermarkets compare

Fresh food is where the idea of one permanently “cheap supermarket” starts to come apart. A retailer can lead on fruit and vegetables, fall behind on soups, then return to the front on ready meals. Pack sizes vary, promotions move, and the ranges themselves are dramatically different: one shop may carry four times as many fresh products as another.

So rather than choose a small basket and pretend it speaks for the whole aisle, we analysed the latest PriceLens data across 11,772 active Fresh Food products. We compared like-for-like or close-equivalent products sold by more than one retailer, removed extreme price gaps likely to be unit or matching anomalies, and measured both how often each supermarket was cheapest and how far its other prices sat above the cheapest available.

The result is competitive at the top. Sainsbury's had the strongest overall Fresh Food score. Asda led the biggest fresh subcategory, fruit and vegetables. We are calling them joint winners — but Tesco and Morrisons were close enough that the full ranking matters much more than a two-shop headline.

The fresh-food ranking

The table below uses robust comparable products: a group was excluded if its highest recorded price was more than twice its lowest, reducing the influence of likely pack, unit and product-matching errors.

The final column is an index against the cheapest available price for each item. An index of 105 means the retailer was about 5% above the market's cheapest price on average across the products where it did not already tie for the lowest. Lower is better.

There are several different stories in those five columns. Sainsbury's has the best win rate and lowest index, but on a smaller set of comparable products. Morrisons has the most comparisons and the largest number of cheapest-price wins, though not the highest share. Tesco and Asda record the same 156 wins, with Tesco slightly ahead on the index and Asda ahead on win rate.

That is a much tighter field than the usual “cheapest supermarket” headline suggests.

Sainsbury's: the strongest overall score

Sainsbury's was at the cheapest available price on 88 of 119 robust comparisons. Its 73.9% win rate was the highest among the full-range supermarkets, and its index of 105.2 was comfortably the best.

Its strongest category signals came from Fresh Soups and Pies, Pasties & Quiches. In soups, Sainsbury's was cheapest on 14 of 16 comparable products; in pies and quiches, it won 15 of 23.

The caveat is coverage. Sainsbury's had 1,626 active Fresh Food products in the database but only 119 survived all the requirements for a robust cross-retailer comparison. That is enough to establish a strong signal, but not enough to claim it wins every kind of fresh shop.

Sainsbury's takes half of our joint award because it was the most consistently cheap across the overall category, not because it dominated every aisle.

Tesco: the closest all-round challenger

Tesco deserves more attention than a third-place label would imply. It had 266 comparable products, was cheapest on 156 of them and posted the second-best index at 108.9.

That combination — a relatively broad comparison set and a competitive index — makes Tesco the strongest all-round challenger to the two winners. It led the Fresh Pizza & Pasta subcategory in our minimum-sample analysis and remained highly competitive in fruit and vegetables, salads, pies and ready meals.

The weakness was inconsistency between categories. Tesco looked strong across much of the aisle but was less competitive in Fresh Soups, where its median comparable price sat noticeably above the cheapest alternatives. A trolley heavy on pizza, pasta and common produce could therefore tell a different story from one filled with soup and prepared fresh lines.

The practical takeaway is simple: Tesco was rarely far away. It did not top the overall ranking, but it was too competitive to treat as a distant runner-up.

Asda: the produce winner

Asda's overall numbers were close to Tesco's: 250 comparable products, 156 cheapest-price wins, a 62.4% win rate and an index of 109.5. What earns it the other half of the joint award is where those wins landed.

Fresh Fruit & Vegetables is by far the largest Fresh Food subcategory, with 4,434 active products across the database. Within the 61 robust produce comparisons available for Asda, it was cheapest on 46 — 75.4% — and recorded an index of 105.0.

Asda also led the Dips & Sandwich Fillers comparison, though on a much smaller sample. Its weaker overall index compared with Sainsbury's reflects the rest of the Fresh Food range, particularly prepared products where offers and range mix have a larger effect.

For shoppers who use “fresh food” to mean the produce aisle first and everything else second, Asda has the clearest claim to the top spot.

Morrisons: broadest evidence, mixed result

Morrisons supplied the largest robust comparison set: 322 products. It was cheapest on 166 of them — more individual wins than any other supermarket in the table — but because the denominator was larger, that translated to a 51.6% win rate and an index of 110.4.

That makes Morrisons an interesting case. It did not win the overall percentage ranking, but its result rests on the broadest body of evidence. It performed well in Dips & Sandwich Fillers, Fresh Salad & Coleslaw, Fresh Soups and Ready Meals, frequently tying or reaching the lowest price. Pies, pasties and quiches were less competitive in the current snapshot.

Morrisons is therefore better described as broadly competitive than uniformly cheapest. Shoppers with a varied fresh basket may find plenty of wins, but the data does not show the same consistency as Sainsbury's or the same produce advantage as Asda.

Ocado: widest range, not the lowest average

Ocado had 3,903 currently priced Fresh Food products, more than twice the comparable catalogue of most rivals in this analysis. Range is its defining advantage: it stocks more premium, specialist and branded fresh lines, which gives shoppers more choice but also changes the mix being measured.

Among its 229 robust comparisons, Ocado was cheapest on 115 — almost exactly half — and recorded an index of 113.3. It was particularly strong in Fresh Salad & Coleslaw, where it took the lowest price on nine of ten qualifying comparisons, and it also performed well among the comparable Ready Meals.

The result is not “Ocado is expensive at everything”. Half of its matched fresh prices were cheapest, and some subcategories were genuine strengths. The issue is what happened on the other half: its non-winning prices tended to sit further above the minimum than those at Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda or Morrisons.

Ocado's position is the clearest reminder that range and cheapness are different benefits. It wins decisively on the former; it does not win this price ranking.

Iceland: a narrower fresh-food proposition

Iceland had 712 currently priced Fresh Food products and 76 robust comparisons. It won 29, giving it a 38.2% win rate and an index of 116.1.

Its Fresh Food catalogue is much smaller and more concentrated than those of the big full-range supermarkets. Unsurprisingly, its strongest showing came in Ready Meals, where it was competitive on a number of comparable products. Results were weaker across produce and the broader prepared-fresh range.

That does not say much about Iceland's core frozen-food strength — frozen products sit outside this analysis entirely. It says only that when the question is specifically the database's Fresh Food category, Iceland offered fewer comparable wins than the leading supermarkets.

Waitrose: premium positioning shows in the numbers

Waitrose had 513 currently priced Fresh Food products in this snapshot, but only 38 robust cross-retailer comparisons. It was cheapest on nine of them, a 23.7% win rate, with an index of 122.0.

The limited comparable range makes this the least certain of the major-supermarket scores. Even so, the direction fits the catalogue: Waitrose carries a greater share of premium and specialist fresh products and is not primarily competing to offer the market's lowest price on common lines.

There were individual bright spots, including several pies and quiches at or near the cheapest price. Across the category as a whole, however, Waitrose was the least price-competitive of the retailers with enough data to assess.

How the picture changes by aisle

No single supermarket led every qualifying subcategory:

These subcategory samples are smaller than the overall ranking, so they should be read as signals rather than permanent titles. They are still useful because they expose what one league table hides: the cheapest shop depends heavily on what kind of fresh food fills the trolley.

A broader definition of “fresh shop”

The database's Fresh Food category does not include everything a shopper might naturally call fresh. Dairy & Eggs, Meat & Fish and Bakery are separate categories. We therefore repeated the robust comparison with all four included.

Sainsbury's and Asda are separated by only 0.6 index points in this broader test, while Morrisons and Tesco remain close behind on much larger comparison sets. This is the strongest reason to call the top a joint result: the lead depends on whether the focus is overall consistency, produce, or the breadth of the fresh basket.

What the data cannot tell us

The prices were checked from the PriceLens database on 8 August 2026 and include current promotions. This is a national catalogue comparison, not a guarantee about the branch at the end of your road. Local availability, delivery charges, minimum spends, loyalty requirements and quality differences can change the decision for an individual household.

There is also one major gap: Aldi and Lidl cannot be ranked here. Aldi had no active Fresh Food products in this database snapshot, while Lidl was not included in the public comparison. B&M and Poundland had too few comparable fresh products for a meaningful score.

The conclusion is therefore deliberately scoped: among the full-range supermarkets the database could assess, Sainsbury's had the best overall score and Asda the strongest produce result, with Tesco and Morrisons close enough to remain serious alternatives.

What to take from it

• Sainsbury's and Asda share the win: Sainsbury's for overall consistency, Asda for fruit and vegetables and a near-identical broader price index.
• Tesco is the strongest all-round challenger, with the second-best primary index and a broad set of comparable fresh products.
• Morrisons recorded the most individual cheapest-price wins, but across the largest comparison set, leaving it fourth on the average index.
• Ocado offers the greatest range and leads some subcategories, but its non-winning prices sit further above the market minimum.
• Iceland's result applies only to fresh food, not its core frozen range; Waitrose's premium positioning is visible in the overall price score.
• The cheapest supermarket still depends on the basket. Produce, soup, pizza, salad and ready meals each produced a different leader.

The useful result is not a single badge above one supermarket door. It is a map of the competition: two leaders, two close challengers, and several category specialists — with enough movement between aisles that checking the actual products still beats relying on reputation.

PriceLens analysis of current catalogue prices recorded up to 8 August 2026. The primary scope is the database's Fresh Food category; the broader sensitivity check also includes Dairy & Eggs, Meat & Fish and Bakery. Extreme matched-price gaps above 2× were excluded from the robust comparison. Prices, promotions and availability change, so check the live comparison before buying.