Christmas dinner is cheaper than last two years, reveals Good Housekeeping

Hosting Christmas dinner for your family this year? Well you can breathe a sigh of relief as Good Housekeeping has revealed your shopping basket will be cheaper than a comparative shop in 2018 and 2017.

The brand has released its seasonal shopping data for the 11th year running and instead of the usual news that consumers can expect their food bill to have increased, it has decreased.

Christmas dinner for a family of eight people is 8 per cent lower in 2019, than last year with all items decreasing in price apart from carrots, which have increased by 5p, and Christmas cake, which stayed the same price.

Good Housekeeping looked at the prices of 11 items including a whole turkey (at least 3.5kg), 880g potatoes (Maris Piper or King Edward), 880g sprouts, carrots and parsnips, 170g stuffing mix, a jar of cranberry sauce, a Christmas pudding, a Christmas cake, a jar of brandy butter and eight mince pies.

It found that if consumers are doing a one-stop shop, Aldi is the cheapest place to go, totalling £24.78 for the whole basket (£3.10 per head) followed by Iceland, which comes to £25.25 (£3.16 pp).

The Iceland shop total costs £9.08 less overall than buying the exact same products last year.

Lidl is third cheapest at £26.22 a basket, followed by Tesco (£30.62), Asda (£30.72), Morrisons (£33), Sainsbury’s (£35), Co-op (£35) and M&S (£38).

If you were to shop around at different supermarkets to achieve the lowest possible cost of a Christmas dinner, it works out at £2.86 per head.

Caroline Bloor, consumer affairs director at Good Housekeeping says: “The supermarket landscape is tougher than ever before, with many supermarkets competing on price with budget grocers like Aldi and Lidl.

“Although Iceland came in second, there was over a £9 drop on its basket from last year – which is huge! - and M&S also decreased its price by £2.58, the second biggest decrease. The gap between the cheapest and the most expensive retailer is the smallest it’s been for five years.

“Consumer loyalty is no longer set in stone when it comes to shopping at one supermarket. In a time of economic challenges, consumers want to get as much bang for their buck as possible, and the supermarkets know this, which is why keeping prices as low as possible to ensure maximum footfall is a key priority for them.”

If consumers want to shop around for the best price they can find the cheapest turkey at Aldi (£9.49), potatoes at Iceland (69p), carrots at M&S (40p), parsnips at M&S (80p), brussels sprouts at M&S (80p) and stuffing at Aldi or Lidl (32p).

For the cheapest cranberry sauce try Aldi (49p), Christmas pudding at Iceland (£3), brandy butter at Iceland (£1.39) and mince pies at Aldi (£1.18).