Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

Leeds Live

Business

Emma Gill & Dave Himelfield

Mum's £52 Asda Just Essentials shop feeds family for a week

Asda Just Essentials

The days of feeding a family at a mid-priced supermarket are over for many parents.

Grocery shopping bills have been rising for more than a decade with large numbers ditching the big four – Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco – for no-frills chains such as Aldi and Lidl. But the big four have long been trying to compete with the German giants with their own budget ranges.

And Leeds-based Asda has gone all out with a new Just Essentials range with 300 products – 50% more than the old Smart Price range – all in bright yellow packaging. The range has been so popular Asda has had to limit shoppers to three items per product.

Is this new range a genuine option for shoppers eager to save money for other rising bills over which they have no control? Or is it just clever marketing?

Parents editor at our sister title the Manchester Evening News, Emma Gill did her big shop at Asda buying almost exclusively Just Essentials products. It cost just shy of £52 but was it enough to feed a family-of-four? Here's how she got on.

I fed my family for a week with Asda Just Essentials (Manchester Family / MEN)

She writes:

Keen to get in on the action I decided to give the range a go to see how cheaply I could feed my family of four - two adults, a teen and a tween - for a full week.

Even I was surprised that I managed to do it for little more than £50, well £51.87 to be exact, and that was for breakfast, dinner and tea over seven days, with some snacks thrown in too.

I had to make a meal plan for our teas to make it work and that's something most people swear by to help keep costs down. On a typical week I don't plan it out as rigidly, which inevitably leads to either another shopping trip where I spend even more when things catch my eye, or a rather uninspiring beige tea from whatever's languishing in the freezer.

The only things I bought from outside the range were the chilli powder and the milk, but even the price of those was included in the total. Some of the products are staggeringly cheap, especially in today's climate. A 500g pack of spaghetti is just 23p for instance, while a jar of bolognese sauce is 39p.

It's always cheaper to make your own meals and the two big 2.5kg bags of white potatoes, costing just 99p each, gave me enough spuds for the Sunday dinner, a corned beef hash and a huge portion of mash to go with the battered fish. They were good potatoes too and while I'd usually buy Maris Pipers for mash, these didn't disappoint like cheaper spuds have done in the past.

But if you are short on time the range does include some ready meals like lasagne, curry and macaroni cheese for 90p each. Meat is usually one of the most expensive parts of a big shop, but the whole chicken, costing £3.19, was enough for the Sunday roast with enough leftover for a curry.

Likewise, the bag of frozen mince beef and onion was split between a chilli and a bolognese and proved just enough for the four of us, with the help of some carrots to bulk out the latter. You can't fail to be impressed by the prices in this range, after giving it a go I can see why customers are being dazzled by the quality as much as the yellow packets.