UK Grocery Costs: What a Weekly Shop Actually Costs

A typical weekly grocery shop for one person in the UK costs between £35 and £80 in 2026, depending on which supermarket you use — from budget chains like Aldi and Lidl to premium retailers like Waitrose and M&S. Where you shop, what proportion of your basket is own-label versus branded, and whether you live in London or the North East together determine which end of that range you land on. This article is part of our wider cost of living in the UK cluster.

The data underpinning this guide comes from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Family Spending survey, the Defra Family Food bulletin for the financial year ending March 2024, Kantar Worldpanel grocery market share data, and Which?'s monthly supermarket basket comparison. We lead with those sources because they are the only ones that track thousands of real transactions over long periods — anecdotal figures and forum estimates are useful for flavour, not for budgeting.

The UK supermarket landscape: budget to premium

UK grocery retail is dominated by eight large chains, plus a growing online-only specialist, Ocado. They fall into three broad tiers by price point and positioning.

Discounters — Aldi and Lidl — focus on own-label ranges and a limited selection of branded staples. Their stores are typically smaller, less frequently refreshed, and more tightly stocked than the large chains. They consistently win Which?'s monthly basket comparison for a 95-item essentials shop. According to Kantar, Lidl claimed a record festive market share of 7.8% in the 12 weeks to 28 December 2025, while Aldi held around 10.4% in the most recent published market share figures.

Mid-range supermarkets — Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, and Morrisons — carry both own-label and branded ranges across tiers from value (Tesco Grower's Harvest, Sainsbury's Stamford Street) to premium (Tesco Finest, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference). Tesco holds the dominant market share position at 28.7% as of December 2025 — its highest share since March 2015 — while Sainsbury's sits at 16.3% for the same period.

Premium retailers — Waitrose and Marks & Spencer Food — carry heavily curated ranges with a substantially higher proportion of premium own-label and finished meal products. Waitrose consistently sits at the top of Which?'s basket price tables. M&S is not directly comparable on basket pricing because its sales mix includes a large non-food component, but its grocery sales grew 10.4% in the run-up to Christmas 2024 as shoppers cross-shopped for festive premium products.

Two additional channels matter for most households: Ocado, the online-only specialist that partners with M&S; and Co-op, the convenience-led chain whose small-format stores typically price items 10–30% above equivalent large-format supermarkets because of higher per-square-foot costs.

Weekly basket comparison: Aldi vs Tesco vs Waitrose

Which?'s monthly price analysis tracks a standardised basket of branded and own-label groceries across the eight largest UK supermarkets. For March 2026, the figures tell a clear story on the essentials basket.

Source: Which?, March 2026 supermarket price comparison. 95-item basket of popular branded and own-brand groceries including milk, cheese and Hovis sliced bread.

The headline gap is stark: Aldi is about 37.6% cheaper than Waitrose for the same basket. But a few nuances are worth flagging before treating these numbers as gospel.

First, Aldi and Lidl carry a more limited range of branded products. If your household relies on particular brands — Heinz, Kellogg's, Hovis — the price difference narrows significantly because you'll end up supplementing with a second shop at a large chain anyway. Which?'s longer 223-item basket, which includes branded products not typically stocked at the discounters, gives a fairer comparison against the big chains: in March 2026 Asda led at £193.37 for that longer list, with Tesco-with-Clubcard at £198.07. Waitrose remained the most expensive at £235.70.

Second, the basket composition matters more than the retailer brand. A Tesco shop built around own-label Tesco and Tesco Grower's Harvest lines can be cheaper in absolute terms than an Aldi shop loaded up with premium Specially Selected items.

Third, loyalty schemes close some of the gap on the big chains but not all. In March 2026 a Clubcard saved 1.66% at Tesco and a Nectar card saved 2.71% at Sainsbury's on the 95-item basket — closer to 6–7% on branded-heavy baskets.

Monthly grocery budgets by household size

ONS Family Spending data for the financial year ending March 2024 shows UK households spent an average of £70.50 per week on food and alcoholic drinks — roughly £305 per month. Defra's Family Food bulletin, using slightly different methodology, reports £47.19 per person per week across all food and drink (including restaurants and takeaways). A 10% uplift to reflect food inflation between FYE 2024 and early 2026 points to the following rough monthly ranges.

Source: Moving to the UK analysis of ONS Family Spending (FYE 2024) and Defra Family Food (FYE 2024), adjusted for CPI food inflation to early 2026. Illustrative ranges only — actual household spending varies significantly by location, lifestyle, and dietary preferences.

A few patterns emerge from the data that are worth flagging for anyone new to the UK.

The lowest-income fifth of UK households allocate around 14.3% of their expenditure to food and non-alcoholic drinks, compared to 11.3% for the average household, according to Defra. That gap reflects both that lower-income households spend a similar absolute amount on food while having less total income, and that they have less scope to absorb price increases. When food inflation ran at 19.1% in March 2023 — the highest rate since 1977 — this pressure was felt disproportionately.

Food inflation has since eased substantially. Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose 3.3% in the 12 months to February 2026, down from 3.6% in January and well below the 2023 peak. Kantar's own grocery price inflation measure ran at 4.0% in the four weeks to 25 January 2026 — the lowest rate since April 2025.

Eating out: pubs, restaurants, coffee and takeaways

Food prepared outside the home is a meaningfully different budget category. Defra's Family Food data shows UK households spent £11.25 per person per week on food and drink consumed out of the home in the financial year ending March 2024 — about a quarter of total food spending. Take-home restaurant and takeaway spending has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels: the proportion of household expenditure going on restaurants and hotels was 7% in FYE 2024, still below the 9% seen before COVID-19.

Rough 2026 UK benchmarks for a single adult eating out:

Source: Moving to the UK analysis of pricing at major UK pub chains (Wetherspoon, Greene King), restaurant price guides, and London cost-of-living sources, April 2026. Prices vary by venue and occasion.

Two specific conventions are worth knowing. First, most UK restaurants and cafes add a discretionary service charge of 10% to 12.5% to the bill at sit-down venues — check the bottom of the menu. This is always discretionary and can be removed if asked. Second, pub meals are typically ordered and paid for at the bar, not at the table, which catches many visitors out.

Delivery apps versus in-store: the real cost difference

Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and Just Eat now dominate UK food delivery, with the market worth around £8 billion annually. Their headline fees are lower than many people assume, but the layered costs add up in ways that are easy to miss.

On Uber Eats in 2025, delivery fees typically ranged from £0.99 to £5.99 per order, with a variable service fee on top (usually 5–15% of the order value) and a small-order fee for baskets below a minimum threshold. Deliveroo and Just Eat use a similar structure. A subscription service — Uber One at around £5.99 per month, Deliveroo Plus at a similar rate — removes or reduces delivery fees on eligible orders above a minimum, typically £15 to £20.

The cost most people overlook is the menu price markup. Restaurants and grocers commonly price items 10% to 20% higher on delivery apps to offset commissions of 14% to 35%. Industry analysis found it is routine for a £0.90 in-store bottle of cola to be listed at £1.13 to £1.30 on delivery apps, with £10 items appearing at £11.50 or more. Across a full basket, these markups typically add several pounds to the bill before the delivery and service fees are even applied.

Put together, a £20 in-store takeaway meal plus a £3 delivery fee, a £1.50 service fee, and a 15% markup on menu prices translates into roughly £28–£29 for the customer — a 40–45% premium on the cost of the equivalent food collected or eaten in. For occasional convenience this may be a reasonable trade; for frequent use it meaningfully reshapes a household's food budget.

How to reduce UK grocery costs

A handful of habits consistently reduce grocery bills for UK households, ordered roughly by impact.

Switch the core shop to a discounter. Moving a 95-item weekly basket from Waitrose to Aldi would have saved £64.38 in March 2026 — roughly £3,300 over a year for a household that repeats the same shop weekly. Even switching from Morrisons or Sainsbury's to Aldi saves around £30 a week on an equivalent basket.

Use loyalty cards strategically. Tesco Clubcard and Sainsbury's Nectar Prices offer the biggest savings on branded and promotional products — 6–7% on a branded-heavy basket in March 2026, according to Which? The schemes also unlock Clubcard-level prices at Tesco Express and Sainsbury's Local, narrowing the convenience-store premium.

Shift from branded to own-label staples. Research indicates shoppers typically save around 30% per basket by switching to own-label equivalents on items where the branded version offers little quality difference — pasta, tinned tomatoes, flour, rice, tea bags, basic dairy. Premium own-label ranges (Tesco Finest, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, M&S Classics) narrow the quality gap on finished products.

Meal-plan around yellow-sticker reductions. UK supermarkets mark down perishables steeply in the late afternoon and evening, typically starting around 6pm. A batch of yellow-sticker fresh meat, fish, or ready meals frozen the same day can cut a weekly shop by 10–15%.

Join free subscription schemes. Lidl Plus, Tesco Clubcard, Sainsbury's Nectar, Morrisons More, Waitrose myWaitrose and Boots Advantage are all free to join. On branded-heavy baskets, Tesco and Sainsbury's loyalty prices shifted the rankings significantly in the Which? March 2026 analysis.

Use a price-tracking tool. Trolley.co.uk tracks prices across major UK supermarkets on tens of thousands of products, alerts shoppers to price drops, and flags shrinkflation (where pack sizes shrink while prices stay flat). It is free and web-based.

Plan the trip around store format. Large-format supermarkets typically carry the cheapest range; Express, Local, Metro, and M&S Simply Food format stores charge noticeably more on most items. A weekly big-format shop combined with small top-ups tends to beat daily convenience-store visits.

Regional variation: London premium vs the rest of the UK

Grocery prices are not uniform across the UK. Cost-of-living analysis suggests London supermarkets average around 9% above the UK price index, while rural Wales and parts of Scotland sit several percentage points below. For a family of four shopping at mid-range supermarkets, that difference translates to £40–£60 per month on groceries alone.

Several factors drive the regional gap. London and the South East carry higher operational costs — rents for retail space, the London weighting uplift on staff wages — that get passed through to shelf prices. Convenience-format stores dominate in central London, adding a structural markup against the equivalent large-format retailer in a suburb. And the mix of premium retailers — Whole Foods Market, Waitrose, M&S Food — skews heavier in affluent central London postcodes than elsewhere.

At the other end, Defra data shows households in the North East of England have the lowest average food spend in Great Britain, around 11% below the UK average, while Yorkshire sits 6.6% below. Northern Ireland households typically spend more than the UK average on food — partly a reflection of a higher proportion of household eating at home, partly higher import costs on some fresh products.

Within London, the variation is sharp. Research comparing grocery basket costs by borough finds Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and Camden carry grocery prices 10–20% above the London average, while Bethnal Green, parts of Greenwich, and outer east London sit at or below it. For a new arrival choosing where to live, living within a short journey of an Aldi, Lidl or large Asda can meaningfully reduce a monthly grocery bill.

Putting a realistic UK food budget together

For most people planning a move to the UK, the honest answer to "how much will groceries cost?" is that it depends less on the country than on three choices the household makes after arriving: which supermarket the weekly shop happens at, how much of the basket is own-label versus branded, and how often eating out and delivery apps get used. The gap between a disciplined Aldi-and-own-label shopper and a Waitrose-and-Deliveroo shopper is substantial — easily £3,000 to £5,000 a year for a couple, and significantly more for a family of four.

A realistic starting point for budgeting is £160–£280 per month for a single adult doing their own cooking, £390–£650 for a couple, and £880–£1,020 for a family of four, assuming a standard mix of own-label and branded products at a mid-range supermarket. Layering in a restaurant meal or takeaway once a week adds roughly £100–£150 per person per month on top. These ranges are compatible with the ONS Family Spending data, Defra Family Food data, and the market research on supermarket basket prices in early 2026.

Food inflation in the UK has eased from the 2023 peak but has not returned to the low-inflation environment of the late 2010s. The Bank of England said in March 2026 that CPI is likely to sit between 3.0% and 3.5% in the second and third quarters of 2026, with domestic labour costs and pass-through from the National Insurance and National Living Wage changes continuing to put modest upward pressure on food prices. For anyone budgeting a year ahead, adding 3–4% headroom to current spending is a reasonable assumption.