A snapshot of a 15-item grocery basket in the UK today has revealed a £6.83 difference between the cheapest and the most expensive supermarket.

Aldi offered up the cheapest basket at £14.75, at £1.87 less than its closest rival Asda, according to the comparison made using the mysupermarket.co.uk website.

And this was despite every grocer other than Aldi having either one or two items missing because they were "unavailable".

Tesco's basket came in at £17.87 followed by Waitrose (£18.82), Morrisons (£20.10), Sainsbury's (£20.21) and Ocado (£21.58).

The Press Association compared 15 standard grocery items such as milk, eggs, sliced bread, bananas and fish fingers using Aldi as the baseline retailer.

This resulted in every one of the 15 items being included from Aldi, but the final tally showed Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Ocado had two missing items and Waitrose and Sainsbury's had one missing item.

The figures follow Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's announcing major investments in price cutting this week alone, while Morrisons has claimed an industry first by promising to match the discounters on price.

But Aldi has never made any such pledge, instead focusing on expanding its product lines and catering for increasingly middle-class tastes, stocking everything from lobster to jodhpurs and skiwear.

Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Ocado all have price comparison schemes which gives shoppers money back vouchers if they could have bought their basket for less elsewhere.