Slash 10% off your food bill

Find out the easy way to make sure you pay a rock bottom price for your groceries.

The cost of your weekly food shop can really add up, especially if you have a large family. 

To make matters even worse, food is becoming more expensive. So, how can you fight back against rising food price inflation, and make absolutely sure your food bill is as low as possible? 

Supermarket giant, Asda, thinks it has the answer. Last year, it launched Asda Price Guarantee which promised your grocery shopping would always be cheaper at Asda than anywhere else. Now, however, it's taken this a step further, promising that your grocery shop at Asda will be 10% cheaper than at any of the other major supermarkets.

Asda claims the price guarantee spells the end of supermarket price wars. But how does it actually work, and will it mean spending less on food?

How does the Asda Price Guarantee work?

Quite simply, Asda will price check your grocery bill against costs at its competitors.

Previously, if your basket of shopping could have been bought more cheaply at a different supermarket, Asda would refund the difference plus a penny more using a voucher which you could put towards your next Asda shop.

Now, however, the difference will be refunded if your shopping is 10% cheaper at a different supermarket. Again, this refund comes in the form of a voucher which must be used within 28 days of being issued.

So let's say your grocery shop at Asda comes to £110 but at Tesco, the same shop would have come to £100. This means your shopping is £10 cheaper at Tesco, so under the old scheme, you would have received £10.01 back.

However, under the new scheme, you'd receive £20 back. That's because for your Asda shop to be 10% cheaper than the Tesco equivalent, it would need to total £90 (10% of £100). So you'll receive a voucher for £20 to make up the difference and ensure your shopping is 10% cheaper at Asda.

Let's take a look at another example. If your shop at Asda cost you £100, but a comparable shop at Tesco came to £105, you wouldn't have previously received any money back, because the Asda shop is still cheaper.

But under the new scheme, you will receive money back because your Asda shop is not 10% cheaper than Tesco's comparable shop of £105. In order for it to be 10% cheaper, your Asda shop would need to total £94.50. As a result, you would receive the difference of £5.50!

To take advantage of the scheme, all you need to do is keep your receipt or your online order form and visit the Asda Price Guarantee website after 9am the following day. Then simply enter your receipt details to calculate how much your food shopping would have cost at rival supermarkets. This is powered by the food price checker website MySupermarket. If your bill is shown to be more expensive at Asda, you’ll qualify for a refund.

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Does the guarantee really work?

I don’t suppose you’ll be too surprised to hear this guarantee comes with a whole truck load of terms and conditions. First of all, the price guarantee only applies to food and drink and the total amount that can be claimed is limited to £100 per month per household (although under the old scheme this was limited to £25 a month, so signifcantly less). The number of claims is limited to 10 per month per household.

Secondly, your food bill will only be compared against Asda’s three largest competitors: Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. Deep discounter supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl won’t be included in the price comparison, nor will smaller stores such as Tesco Metro or Sainsbury’s Local. (Note that Morrisons prices are excluded from the MySupermarket price checker, and are checked independently just twice a week.)

To use the Asda Price Guarantee you’ll need to buy at least eight different items, of which at least one should be comparable. Items will be compared on a like for like basis so Asda Smart Price products, for example, will be priced against other economy ranges. And branded products will only be compared with each other.

Items which are exclusively available at Asda - which represents about 10% of the total product range - and any product without a suitable equivalent at a competitor - roughly 20% of the range - will also be excluded. That means, just 70% of Asda's food and drink products can be compared. But, on the plus side, promotions such as ‘3 for 2’ and BOGOFs at each of the supermarkets are included in the price checker calculation.

So you can see, the price guarantee doesn’t necessarily mean your Asda shopping will always be cheaper than its rivals, as the supermarket has claimed. And even if the Asda Price Guarantee does provide a refund on your food shopping, you’ll only beat the competitors by a penny anyway which hardly equates to huge savings for consumers.

MySupermarket

So, rather than shopping at Asda and finding out whether you qualify for a refund the following day, surely it makes more sense to compare prices yourself at MySupermarket before you buy anything.

In this way, you won’t have the hassle of claiming a refund as you’ll already know which supermarket offers the best value.

MySupermarket offers a free price checker which compares items at Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Ocado. All you need to do is enter your shopping list online, and the price checker calculates which of the four supermarkets is the cheapest for the products you want to buy. The site will also suggest you ‘swap and save’ by substituting certain products with cheaper alternatives.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll be transferred to the best value supermarket where you can complete your shopping online, or if you prefer, you can print out your shopping list and buy in store.

You might be able to save even more money by taking advantage of the site's top special offers and supermarket vouchers. You can also earn Maximiles loyalty points which can be exchanged for rewards, in addition to your usual Clubcard, Nectar or John Lewis Partnership points. You’ll earn 1 Maximiles point for every £1 you spend at MySupermarket which can be exchanged for free gifts such as CDs, DVDs, electrical products and days out.

Once again, MySupermarket doesn’t compare prices at the deep discounters so it may be possible to get your food bill down even more elsewhere. But you can rest assured if you want to shop at a leading supermarket, you’ll always know where the best food bargains can be found for your whole weekly shop guaranteed.

Find out more about cutting your food bills in 10 ways to slash your supermarket spend.

This is a classic article that has been updated for 2011.

More: Save £2,011 in 2011! | Slash your food bills online