Lidl has kicked off the 2025 supermarket Christmas dinner wars by unveiling an £11.85 feast for eight – including more than 3kg of vegetables for just 40p.
The bulk of the total cost – equating to £1.48 per person – being offered by the German discounter this festive season comes from a whole turkey costing £9.
The next most expensive ingredients are gravy granules (300g) for £1.09, two packs of stuffing for 90p (45p each) and a pack of 15 Yorkshire puddings for 46p.
Festive vegetables will be heavily discounted – including sprouts (500g), carrots (1kg) and potatoes (2kg), all at 8p each; plus 1kg of parsnips for 16p (8p per 500g).
This gives a total of £11.85, although Lidl said it would also be offering two other vegetables within the 8p offer – echalion shallots (300g) and individual swedes.
Lidl said the promotional prices would be active from December 19 until 24 but did not affect payments to farmers, with whom it works on long-term agreements.
The supermarket’s announcement has fired the starting gun on a race to the bottom on vegetable prices for Christmas, with retailers now having an annual battle.
Aldi and Aldi both joined Lidl in offering festive vegetables for 8p last year following a day of price cuts which brought them down from 15p, reported The Grocer.
Such a price war has previously attracted criticism from the farming sector despite retailers claiming that payments to growers are unaffected by the discounts.
The British Growers Association previously told of fears that it ‘sets an unrealistic expectation in the minds of consumers as to what it costs to produce this stuff’.
After similar cuts at Easter, the National Farmers’ Union urged supermarkets to ensure ‘decisions to massively discount products’ do not have ‘long term impacts on the public’s perception of true market value and production costs’.
Earlier this month, consumer watchdog Which? revealed Lidl had beat Aldi to the crown of Britain’s cheapest supermarket for the second time in recent months.
The group’s monthly analysis involves comparing the average price of a shop consisting of popular groceries at eight of the UK’s biggest supermarkets.
The cheapest supermarket for a shopping list of 70 items in October was Lidl, where the groceries cost £120.46 on average across the month. Members of its loyalty scheme Lidl Plus could save a further 8p.
Aldi, which has been the cheapest 22 times in the last 24 months, was 54p more expensive than Aldi last month with the list costing £121 on average.
For a longer list of 187 items, Asda continues to be cheaper than Tesco – with a Clubcard – and retained its place as one of the UK’s cheapest supermarkets.
Aldi and Lidl are not included in that comparison because they have a smaller range of products compared to the other supermarkets.
The longer list at Asda cost £469.11, making it cheaper than Tesco with a Clubcard by £7 (£476.11).
Waitrose was the most expensive on average, with the bigger shop costing £541.55 – a difference of £72.44 compared to Asda – 15 per cent more.
Waitrose was also the most expensive supermarket for a smaller list of items last month, totalling £163.04 on average.
