'I compared Aldi with M&S and it's made me question everything'

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

There aren't many places where I haven't shopped for food - Asda, Aldi, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Lidl, Tesco, Iceland, you name it, I've been to them all.

One place I've never done a food shop is Marks and Spencer. There's always been something about the place that screams expensive, the kind of place your rich grandma would shop for her weekly joint of meat.

I don't have a rich grandma, but if I did, I imagine that's where she'd shop. So when I was asked to see how its products - and its prices - fared against budget retailer Aldi, I could have laughed out loud.

Read more: Almost every single item in my supermarket shop cost less than Morrisons

'This is not just food' after all, and there was no way on earth that M&S would even get close to Aldi's prices, or so I thought.

Like many shoppers, I knew little of the retailer's Remarksable range, which seems to have been thrust into the spotlight of late. The company's investment, which has seen prices drop after being matched against key competitors, comes at a time when customers are more willing than ever to shop around in search of the cheapest products.

Its focus is on everyday staples - 'delivering trusted value' for customers, with 'no compromises' on M&S quality, welfare and sourcing standards.

And it turns out that some of its products are indeed pretty cheap - at today's standards anyway - with a few of them cheaper than Aldi's standard tier would you believe.

I was shocked to discover that a 250g block of butter costs £1.75 in M&S, compared with Aldi's £1.99. Even in our weekly comparison of basics like bread and butter, only Lidl gets anywhere close to that price, at £1.72, with the majority of the big supermarkets matching Aldi's price.

Potatoes were cheaper