Bad news for shoppers as three supermarkets hike price of grocery essential 10% in just a week

Price rises may not be happening at the speed they were, but shoppers are still faced with huge bills that show little sign of coming down.

While many of the prices remain stagnant in our weekly price comparison of shopping essentials, it's bad news for shoppers this week as three supermarkets have hiked the price of one key staple by 10% since just last week.

Aldi has put the price of its 160-box of budget tea bags up from £1.59 to £1.75. And as part of their Aldi Price Match schemes, both Sainsbury's and Tesco have done the same.

The increase means that Lidl, which has been cheapest for the majority of the time we've been tracking supermarket prices since March last year, has widened its lead on competitors.

Its bill for the eight items we track - butter, milk, bread, tea bags, coffee, beans, chicken and mince - comes to £11.54, which is almost 11% cheaper than the most expensive, Asda, at £12.79, which knocked Morrisons off the bottom spot last week. Morrisons has gone one better this week, after reducing its mince to £2.49 - the only other price change in this week's comparison.

Lidl works out at 5% cheaper than Sainsbury's and Aldi this week, where the bills come to £12.13 and £12.14 respectively. In fourth place is Tesco with a bill of £12.43.

Aldi disputes the findings of our comparison, saying the items we are comparing each week are not necessarily like-for-like. And it says the only reason Sainsbury’s shows as cheaper is because the small sample of products is part of Sainsbury’s Aldi Price Match scheme and includes one Sainsbury’s product (beans) that is almost 5% smaller than the Aldi equivalent.

Asda also says the comparison is unfair and that the small sample of products doesn't give the full picture of