'Cheapest' supermarket now second most expensive after hiking price of essential 13% since last week

A supermarket which was cheapest for a basket of essentials just two months ago has climbed to second most expensive after hiking the price of a product 13% in the last week.

We've been tracking the cost of the same eight basics at the six main supermarkets for more than two years now since the cost of living crisis began to really take hold.

In May, it was Morrisons that worked out cheapest for the groceries, which include milk, bread, tea bags, coffee, butter, baked beans, chicken breasts and mince.

Read more: Morrisons is giving away free food for the next fortnight

But now the retailer is second most expensive for the products after putting up the price of its cheapest Savers tea bags from 79p for a pack of 80 to 89p since last week. It means the cost of the 160, which is the pack size we compare across all supermarkets, is up by a staggering 13%.

It's bad news for shoppers, who had hoped they'd seen the last of big weekly increases with products.

Lidl remains the cheapest of all the retailers, with a bill of £12.11, followed by Aldi at £12.14 and Asda, which is just pennies behind those for the fifth week running, with a bill of £12.18.

Sainsbury's is fourth cheapest at £12.33, followed by Morrisons, now £12.47, and the most expensive Tesco, at £12.62.

Aldi disputes the results of our weekly comparison, saying that it does not take into account like-for-like products or ‘the higher quality’ of its products. The supermarket says, for example, that Aldi beans are 20g heavier than Sainsbury's and that Aldi teabags are 'better quality than the comparative products used'.

Asda also disagrees with our comparison and says that our small sample of products does not represent the fuller picture of prices and does not