Aldi has replaced Waitrose as the UK’s favourite supermarket, according to a new survey from Which?.
Knocking Waitrose from the top spot, Aldi scored highly in the survey for value for money and the quality of its fresh and own-label food.
“With food costs rising it seems as though shoppers have felt the pinch and are voting with their feet and wallets. Aldi and Lidl have won over their customers with value for money,” said Alex Neill, the managing director of Which? home products and services.
The second favourite supermarket was Marks & Spencer (LON: MKS), followed closely by Lidl and then Waitrose (LON: JLH) falling into fourth place.
The larger supermarkets did worse off in the survey, with Sainsbury’s (LON: SBRY) coming last of the nine.
“The big four supermarkets need to up their game or risk losing their customers to other supermarkets who are doing a better job of giving people what they want,” said Neill.
Discount supermarkets Aldi and Lidl did not score highly in all areas, they both scored poorly for queuing time, staff availability and for the range of products on offer.
Both chains have experienced strong sales and increase in sales over the past few years, despite only accounting for seven and five percent of the market.
The Sunday Times reported today that Tesco (LON: TSCO) is planning on opening a discount chain to rival the discounters, offering a limited range of own-brand products.
Among the online supermarkets, Iceland came top for the third year in a row – a position in this year shares with Ocado. Iceland did well in the Which? survey, receiving five stars for its home delivery service.
Results of the survey are as follows:
- Aldi 74%
- Marks and Spencer 73%
- Lidl 69%
- Waitrose 68%
- Iceland 65%
- Tesco 64%
- Asda 63%
- Morrisons 63%
- Sainsbury’s 62%