A new study by consumer champions Which? has surveyed more than 3,000 British shoppers to find out the UK’s best supermarkets for in-store and online grocery shopping.
Every year, the consumer organisation asks thousands of shoppers to rate supermarkets on everything from store appearance and queuing time to delivery and the choice of substitutions.
Its definitive guide to the best and worst supermarkets reveals which major chains offer value for money, quality products and great customer service – and which leave customers underwhelmed.
And it seems when it comes to the big four, Tesco, Sainsbury’s Morrisons and Asda, and the discount stores like Lidl and Aldi, they all have plenty to learn.
The winning supermarket, known for its top-quality food and super helpful staff, outshone its cheaper rivals proving supermarket shoppers want more than just a bag of bargains when they do the food shop.
The Which? survey revealed that Marks & Spencer was the best-recommended provider for in-store shopping with an overall customer score of 79% by Which? followed by Tesco, Aldi, Iceland and Waitrose.
Morrisons came in last for the in-store shoppers’ experience with a score of just 66%.
Tesco scored 74% while Aldi, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose jointly managed an overall score of 72% each. The survey rated value for money, staff helpfulness, overall customer service, store appearance, waiting times at the checkout and self-service checkout efficiency, stock availability, range of products, overall quality of own label products and freshness of produce.
For Best online supermarkets for 2025 Ocado came up joint tops with Tesco with both scoring 79% overall. Waitrose scored 78% while Sainsbury’s scored 76% and Iceland made up the top five online supermarkets according to shoppers with a 73% score overall.
For the best online supermarket, those surveyed were asked to rate value for money, communication regarding delivery or collection, ease of using the website or app and stock availability. Availability of collection slots was also important to shoppers and other categories like the in-store experience including freshness or products was also considered.
Amazon Fresh and Asda were the worst-rated for online supermarkets with overall scores of 68% and 66% respectively.
Results are based on an online survey of 2,653 members of the public who are solely or jointly responsible for grocery shopping in their household (Oct-Nov 2024). Customer score is based on satisfaction with the brand and likelihood to recommend.
Which? also asked people what they found most annoying about shopping for groceries in-store or online.
For shopping in-store the biggest bugbear with almost a third of respondents (31%) citing this was not enough staffed checkouts, followed by long queues at checkouts (30%) and obstructions in the aisles (17%).
For shopping online the biggest annoyance was items unavailable (34%) followed by substituted items (25%) and finally perishable products didn’t have a reasonable shelf life (19%)
(Respondents were able to choose multiple answers, so percentages don’t add up to 100%.)
Last year, Which? revealed millions of people are excluded from accessing lower price loyalty prices at some of the UK’s biggest retailers because many schemes have minimum age requirements, and need shoppers to have UK residency or a UK address, or require an email address or access to an app to sign up.
This means that young carers, teenagers buying lunch and people without internet access are among those excluded from lower prices at some stores.
They called for action from retailers to tackle this problem. The Competition and Markets Authority backed these calls, saying some supermarkets could do more to ensure certain groups of shopper can access – or know how they can access – loyalty prices, such as those without a smartphone or those who are under 18.
