Plant-based products vs their meat equivalents: UK supermarket price check

Own-brand and branded pairs at the big UK chains, per 100g/100ml, following the basket in Which? (2022)

Snapshot result, 6 July 2026 Own-brand plant-based sausages still cost roughly twice as much per 100g as pork sausages at three of the four chains with a comparable pair (Tesco 1.9x, Sainsbury's 1.9x, Co-op 2.1x; Waitrose 1.1x). Burgers are near price parity (0.9x to 1.2x, with one vegetable-burger outlier at 0.4x). Own-brand vegan mayonnaise carries the largest premium in the basket (2.8x at Sainsbury's), while Heinz sells its vegan and standard mayo at the same price and size.

Price ratio overview: plant-based / meat, per 100g

Bar length = ratio of plant-based price per 100g to the meat equivalent. Vertical line = parity (1.0). plant-based dearer plant-based cheaper or equal

Sausages (own-brand)

Co-op

2.1x

Tesco

1.9x

Sainsbury's

1.9x

Waitrose

1.1x

Burgers (own-brand)

Co-op

1.2x

Sainsbury's

1.1x

Tesco

1.0x

Waitrose

0.9x

Asda

0.4x

Mayonnaise (own-brand)

Sainsbury's

2.8x

Asda 0.4x compares a vegetable burger (not a meat-imitation product) against quarter pounders; see the burgers table note.

Sausages: own-brand plant vs pork

Chain	Plant-based product	£	£/100g	Pork product	£	£/100g	Ratio
Tesco	Plant Chef 6 Cumberland Style Meat-Free Bangers, 300g	2.30	0.77	British Pork Sausages x8, 454g	1.79	0.39	1.9x
Sainsbury's	Plant Pioneers Cumberland Shroomdogs x6, 300g	2.30	0.77	Butcher's Choice Cumberland British Pork Sausage x8, 454g	1.79	0.39	1.9x
Waitrose	Plant Living No Chorizo Sausages, 280g	3.00	1.07	6 Chorizo Style Pork Sausages, 400g	4.00	1.00	1.1x
Co-op	Plant Based Sizzlin' Sausages, 300g	2.80	0.93	Butchers Choice 8 British Pork Sausages, 454g	2.00	0.44	2.1x

Sainsbury's row verified against Sainsbury's own product API. Waitrose pair is chorizo vs no-chorizo (its closest like-for-like). Morrisons and Asda excluded: no standard own-brand pork sausage (Morrisons) or own-brand plant sausage (Asda) listed on the aggregator; M&S not covered by the aggregator.

Burgers: own-brand plant vs beef

Chain	Plant-based product	£	£/100g	Beef product	£	£/100g	Ratio
Tesco	Plant Chef 2 Meat Free Burgers, 226g	2.00	0.88	Beef Burgers x8 (frozen), 454g	4.00	0.88	1.0x
Asda	Plant Based by ASDA 4 Veggie Burgers	1.45	0.30	Summer Grill by ASDA 4 Quarter Pounder Beef Burgers, 454g	3.77	0.83	0.4x
Sainsbury's	Plant Pioneers Meat Free Burgers, 226g	2.00	0.89	4 Quarter Pounder British Beef Burgers, 454g	3.50	0.77	1.1x
Waitrose	PlantLiving 2 Ultimate No Meat Burgers, 210g	2.25	1.07	BBQ 4 Oak Smoked Beef Burgers, 454g	5.50	1.21	0.9x
Co-op	Plant Based The Incredible Burger, 210g	2.40	1.14	British 4 Beef Quarter Pounder Burgers, 454g	4.25	0.94	1.2x

Match-quality flags: Tesco pairs a chilled plant product with frozen beef burgers; the Asda plant product is a vegetable burger rather than a meat-imitation patty (its weight is implied from the aggregator's unit price, unverified); the Waitrose pair sits in a premium tier on both sides. Sainsbury's row verified against Sainsbury's API; the aggregator's record for that chain (a 2-pack at 1.32/100g) appears stale and was replaced with the retailer's current standard 4-pack. Morrisons has no comparable own-brand meat-imitation burger, matching the exclusion in Which? (2022).

Mayonnaise: vegan vs egg-based

Range	Vegan product	£	£/100	Standard product	£	£/100	Ratio
Sainsbury's own-brand	Plant Pioneers Vegan Mayo, 250ml	1.40	0.56	Mayonnaise Squeezy, 500ml	1.00	0.20	2.8x
Hellmann's (at Tesco)	Plant Based Mayo, 750ml	4.75	0.63	Real Mayonnaise, 580ml	3.25	0.56	1.1x
Hellmann's (at Morrisons)	Plant Based Mayo, 750ml	4.50	0.60	Real Mayonnaise, 580ml	2.50	0.43	1.4x
Heinz (at Sainsbury's)	Seriously Good Vegan Mayo, 775g	3.90	0.50	Seriously Good Mayonnaise, 775g	3.90	0.50	1.0x

Pack sizes differ within the Sainsbury's and Hellmann's pairs (smaller packs usually cost more per 100ml, so those ratios partly reflect pack size). Heinz sells both at the same size and price: parity held at Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's, with Tesco at 3.95 vs 3.90. A 2.00 Waitrose listing for the standard Heinz was excluded as a suspected stale or promotional record.

Branded pairs across chains

Richmond sausages: 8 Meat Free Vegan (304g) vs 8 Thick Pork (410g)

Chain	Vegan £	Vegan £/100g	Pork £	Pork £/100g	Ratio
Asda	1.87	0.62	2.17	0.53	1.2x
Tesco	2.40	0.79	2.20	0.54	1.5x
Morrisons	2.40	0.79	2.30	0.56	1.4x
Co-op	3.00	0.99	3.00	0.73	1.4x

Waitrose stocks the vegan product (2.50, 0.82/100g) but no pork price was listed. Which? (2022) found Richmond meat-free at 0.72 to 0.84 and pork at 0.50 to 0.55 per 100g.

Magnum: Collection Vegan Classic (3 x 90ml) vs Classic Chocolate (3 x 100ml)

Chain	Vegan £	Vegan £/100ml	Classic £	Classic £/100ml	Ratio
Asda	3.25	1.20	3.48	1.16	1.0x
Tesco	4.25	1.57	3.50	1.17	1.3x
Sainsbury's	4.25	1.57	3.50	1.17	1.3x
Morrisons	4.25	1.57	2.00	0.67	2.4x
Waitrose	4.45	1.65	3.50	1.17	1.4x
Ocado	4.25	1.57	3.50	1.17	1.3x

The Morrisons 2.00 classic price looks like a promotion; Tesco also showed a 2.50 Clubcard price (loyalty prices are excluded from the headline figures throughout).

Then vs now: matched pairs against Which? (2022)

Pair (per 100g)	Plant 2022	Plant 2026	Meat 2022	Meat 2026	Ratio 2022	Ratio 2026
Tesco Plant Chef Cumberland bangers vs pork sausages	0.56	0.77	0.33	0.39	1.7x	1.9x
Sainsbury's Shroomdogs vs Butcher's Choice Cumberland	0.81	0.77	0.42	0.39	1.9x	1.9x
Co-op Sizzlin' sausages vs Co-op pork sausages	0.53	0.93	0.54	0.44	1.0x	2.1x

2022 figures are three-month averages of daily prices (Aug to Oct 2022, Which?); 2026 figures are a one-day snapshot, so this comparison is indicative only. The 2022 Co-op comparator was a gluten-free pork sausage supplied directly by Co-op, and Co-op had just price-matched its vegan range: that parity has since reversed. The Sainsbury's pair is the only one where the plant product got cheaper.

Method and caveats

Product basket: follows the own-brand and branded pairs in Which? (Dec 2022), "Plant-based alternatives can cost twice as much as meat", re-matched to July 2026 assortments. Each pair is a plant-based product and its nearest meat/egg equivalent in the same range tier.
Prices: scraped 6 July 2026 from trolley.co.uk (a price aggregator; secondary source) because Tesco, Asda, Ocado and Co-op block automated access to their own sites. Sainsbury's rows were verified against Sainsbury's own product API (primary source); other chains are aggregator-only in this prototype.
Unit prices: pounds per 100g/100ml computed from the pack price and pack weight. The aggregator's own multipack unit prices are wrong (it multiplies pack count by total weight) and were not used. Pack weights come from the retailer listing titles; the Asda veggie-burger weight is implied, not confirmed.
Shelf prices only: loyalty-card prices (Nectar, Clubcard) and multibuy offers are noted where seen but excluded from all figures, matching the Which? approach.
One day, not an average: Which? averaged three months of daily prices; this snapshot is a single day. The production version of this site will scrape daily and accumulate the same kind of average over time.
Coverage gaps: M&S (not on the aggregator), Morrisons sausages/burgers and Asda sausages (no comparable own-brand pair found), ready meals and coleslaw (in the Which? basket, not yet in this prototype).

What the production site adds

Daily automated scrape with a price-history series, so ratios become multi-month averages rather than one-day snapshots (the Which? methodology).
Direct retailer sources for Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Morrisons; aggregator only where retailers block access, labelled per row.
The remaining Which? categories (ready meals, coleslaw and potato salad) and a fuller branded set (Ginsters, plant milk).
Downloadable data (CSV/JSON) for every date, as on olas.kanepajs.eu.

Prototype prepared with Claude Code (data collection, verification and page build), 6 July 2026. Prices are point-in-time shelf prices and may have changed. Sources: trolley.co.uk (aggregator), Sainsbury's product API, Which? (2022). Data and code: github.com/akanepajs/uk-food. Related: olas.kanepajs.eu (Latvian egg prices).