Nearly a Third of Your Supermarket Shop Is on Promotion — But Are You Actually Saving?

I remember the exact moment I stopped feeling good about food shopping. It was sometime back in 2023, I'd just done a perfectly ordinary weekly shop at the local Tesco — same stuff as usual — and the total was nearly £30 more than it would have been eighteen months earlier. The headlines kept saying inflation was "easing." But none of that was turning up at the checkout.

Fast forward to mid-2026 and the official numbers look better. UK grocery inflation has dropped to around 3%. The Food Foundation measured it at 2.2% for the year to May 2026. That sounds almost normal. Except: it's 2.2% on top of the enormous rises we've already had. A woman's typical weekly food basket now costs £53.51, and a man's £60.24 — up 30.6% and 38.4% respectively since April 2022, according to the Food Foundation's Basic Basket tracker. Prices haven't come down. They've just stopped climbing quite so fast.

So what are supermarkets doing about it? Competing — hard. And the weapon of choice right now is promotions.

One in Three Items Is on Deal

According to the latest Kantar data (published in June 2026), 30.4% of all UK grocery spending is now on a promotional price. That's almost a third of everything sold in British supermarkets — through loyalty card discounts, multi-buy offers, or temporary price cuts. The last time we saw figures this high outside of Christmas was during the peak cost-of-living pressure in 2023.

The reason is simple: shoppers have become far more price-conscious, and the big supermarkets are trying to hold on to customers who might otherwise drive an extra ten minutes to Aldi or Lidl. Which brings us to the second big story of 2026.

The Discounters Are Winning

Lidl has just overtaken Morrisons to become the UK's fifth-largest supermarket, with a record 8.7% market share. Combined, Aldi and Lidl now account for roughly 19% of the UK grocery market — up from about 10% in 2017. That's nearly a doubling of market share in under a decade.

This isn't just interesting trivia. It's the single biggest driver of what's happening in the rest of the market. Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda aren't flooding the shelves with offers out of generosity — they're doing it because they know you have a genuine alternative, and that alternative is getting better. Lidl's own app-based loyalty scheme has been a significant driver of its recent growth, with roughly half its gains coming from customers using Lidl Plus more regularly.

Are Loyalty Discounts Genuine?

This is the question a lot of people ask, and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has now given us a fairly definitive answer. After reviewing pricing data on around 50,000 grocery products across major loyalty schemes, the CMA concluded that members "can almost always make a genuine saving on the usual price" when buying loyalty-priced products. They found very limited evidence of supermarkets inflating base prices to make the loyalty discount look bigger than it is.

That's reassuring. But it's not the whole picture. The CMA also found that 61 of the 429 loyalty products it examined in detail were available cheaper at another supermarket. So the loyalty price is usually a genuine discount on that retailer's normal price — but it might still not be the cheapest option on the market. Always worth checking.

Perhaps more telling: 40% of shoppers still don't trust that loyalty prices represent real savings, and 43% think it's fundamentally unfair that you have to join a scheme to access the lower price. If you're in that 40% — and I get it, the whole thing does feel slightly manipulative — the CMA's findings are worth knowing about. Most of the time, the deal is real.

How to Play the Promotion Game

Given that 30% of everything is on offer, the savvy approach is to build your shopping habits around promotions rather than treating them as a bonus. A few practical things:

• Sign up to every loyalty scheme at every supermarket you use. Tesco Clubcard, Sainsbury's Nectar, Lidl Plus, Boots Advantage Card. Most now offer app-exclusive prices that are meaningfully lower than shelf price — and the CMA says they're genuine.

• Buy ahead on non-perishables when they hit promotion. Tinned goods, pasta, washing powder, coffee — if something you use regularly drops to a promotional price, that's the time to stock up.

• Don't assume one supermarket is always cheapest. The CMA found 61 loyalty products that were still cheaper elsewhere. Use a price comparison tool, or do a quick check on a site like Which? or MoneySavingExpert's supermarket comparison.

• Watch the unit price, not the pack price. A "promotional" larger pack isn't always better value than a normal-sized pack elsewhere.

The Side of This Story That Doesn't Feel So Good

I want to be honest about something. All of this "how to game the system" advice assumes you have the time, and the upfront cash to buy in bulk and compare prices across multiple shops. A lot of people don't, and this is where getting ahead and knowing your budget really helps, you can use our free budget tool to help organise your household budget.

According to the Food Foundation, 12% of UK households — 6.3 million adults — experienced food insecurity in January 2026. Among households with children, it's 15%, equating to 2.2 million children. For those families, the issue isn't whether they're making the most of Clubcard Prices. It's whether they can afford a full basket at all.

The promotion economy benefits those who are already reasonably comfortable. That's worth keeping in mind, and it's one reason why the debate around food insecurity isn't going away even as headline inflation numbers fall.

Final Thoughts

• Grocery inflation has eased to around 2–3%, but food prices are still 30–38% higher than they were in April 2022 — easing doesn't mean cheaper.

• Nearly a third of all supermarket spending is now on promotion, driven by intense competition from Aldi and Lidl (now ~19% of the market between them).

• Lidl overtook Morrisons in 2026 to become the UK's fifth-largest supermarket — its loyalty app has been a key driver of growth.

• The CMA confirmed that most loyalty price deals are genuine, but prices can still be cheaper at another supermarket — comparison still matters.

• Signing up to loyalty schemes and buying ahead on promotional non-perishables are the most practical ways to benefit from the current pricing environment.

• 6.3 million adults remain food insecure — savvy shopping advice only goes so far for the households most affected by food costs.

This article is here to give you some information and is for educational purposes only. It is not meant to give you financial advice. It is always a good idea to chat with a financial adviser who knows you well and can help you make the best decisions for your situation.