Cheapest supermarket Christmas dinner revealed: price of turkey, trimmings and puds, compared

Aldi and Lidl are joint-cheapest for Christmas dinner essentials, consumer champion Which? has found, in an analysis that shows festive meal ingredients costing nearly £19 more at one major supermarket.

Which? analysed the prices of 12 popular festive foods including turkey, trimmings and a Christmas pudding at seven major supermarkets – Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

The analysis included a medium frozen turkey crown, pigs in blankets, Brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, broccoli, peas, potatoes, stock, cranberry sauce and a Christmas pudding.

While Aldi was the cheapest overall, with the traditional festive food coming in at £33.80, Lidl was just 4p more at £33.84.

Two of the traditional supermarkets were also found to be selling the key Christmas dinner ingredients for less than £40 including Asda (£37.01) and Tesco (£39.49).

At the other end of the scale, upmarket supermarket Waitrose was nearly £19 (£18.88) more expensive than Aldi, with the Christmas food items costing £52.68.

The significant difference would mean that a shopper switching from Waitrose to Aldi or Lidl could potentially add a bottle of bubbles, some smoked salmon and a tub of chocolates to their basket and still come home with change.

The medium turkey crown was the most expensive item across all of the supermarkets according to Which?’s research, however it was cheapest at Aldi and Lidl (£15.49). Waitrose was the most expensive at £26 on average.

Which? found Aldi and Lidl were also joint cheapest for Christmas pudding at £4.49 while Sainsbury’s was the priciest (£8 on average).

Which? found that the biggest percentage price difference was for cranberry sauce.

At Aldi, whole cranberry sauce (200g) was 59p while at Waitrose, own-brand Waitrose Wild cranberry sauce (205g) was £2.20 –  270 per cent more expensive.

When Which? compared the price of the medium turkey crown year on year for a three week period in November, it found the highest increase was at Morrisons and Tesco.

The price at Morrisons was  £21.99 on average in 2022 but has gone up to £25.35 for the same size in 2023 – an increase of £3.36 (15%).

At Tesco this went from £17.00 on average in 2022 to £19.50 in 2023  – an increase of £2.50 (also 15%) for a similar size product.

Which? found that at Asda the price for the same size frozen turkey crown went down by three per cent from an average of £16.50 in 2022 to £16 in 2023.

At Aldi and Lidl the price of the same size turkey crown stayed the same year on year remaining at £15.49.

Ele Clark, Which? Retail Editor, said:

“With food prices still very high, we know lots of people will be feeling the pinch this Christmas so it’s good to know that there are significant savings to be made by choosing one of the cheaper supermarkets.

“While Aldi and Lidl were the cheapest retailers in our analysis, two traditional supermarkets were not far behind, meaning most people are likely to live reasonably close to a store where they could pick up their turkey and other festive essentials for under £40.”