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

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

† = frozen series (last aggregator snapshot, 22 Jul 2026); unmarked chains update daily from the retailer. The Asda burger figure compares a vegetable burger (not a meat-imitation product) against quarter pounders; see the burgers table note.

Sausages: own-brand plant vs pork

Sainsbury's row fetched from Sainsbury's own product API. Waitrose pair is chorizo vs no-chorizo (its closest like-for-like). Morrisons and Asda have no own-brand pair in this category (no standard own-brand pork sausage at Morrisons; no own-brand plant sausage at Asda); M&S was never covered. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Burgers: own-brand plant vs beef

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 was implied from the former aggregator's unit price, unverified); the Waitrose pair is in a premium tier on both sides. Sainsbury's row fetched from Sainsbury's API. Morrisons has no comparable own-brand meat-imitation burger, matching the exclusion in Which? (2022). † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Mince: own-brand plant vs beef

Plant mince is compared against the standard 20% fat beef mince, the cheapest standard tier; against lean 5% mince the plant discount would be larger still. Tesco and Asda plant minces are frozen products against chilled beef. Sainsbury's delisted Plant Pioneers Meat Free Mince by July 2026, so no chain in this category has a live own-brand pair. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Meatballs: own-brand plant vs beef

The Tesco pair is frozen on both sides but 12 balls vs a 24-ball pack. Sainsbury's row fetched from Sainsbury's API (its 5% fat variant is more expensive, which would push the ratio lower still). Morrisons and Co-op list no own-brand plant meatballs. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Ready meals: own-brand plant vs meat

The Which? (2022) ready-meal pairs at Tesco (cottage pie) and Waitrose (moussaka) were discontinued before this series began, so the category covers Sainsbury's (lasagne vs lasagne) and Co-op (the same curry pair Which? used). Note the Co-op pair compares a cauliflower curry with a chicken curry: a like-for-like dish, not a like-for-like protein swap. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Coleslaw: own-brand vegan vs standard

Vegan coleslaw differs from standard mainly in the dressing (no egg/cream). Sainsbury's pair is deli-style vs deli-style at the same 300g size, fetched from Sainsbury's API. M&S Plant Kitchen coleslaw was excluded when the series ran on the former aggregator (its pack weights could not be verified there) and M&S has no compliant direct source. Morrisons lists no standard own-brand coleslaw. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Mayonnaise: own-brand vegan vs egg-based

Sainsbury's delisted Plant Pioneers Vegan Mayo by July 2026, so this category has no live own-brand pair; the frozen row compares packs of different sizes (smaller packs usually cost more per 100ml). Same-brand Hellmann's and Heinz comparisons continue in the branded section below. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Branded pairs across chains

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

Which? (2022) found Richmond meat-free at 0.72 to 0.84 and pork at 0.50 to 0.55 per 100g. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

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

Loyalty-card prices (Nectar, Clubcard) are excluded from all figures throughout; unusually low chain prices may be unflagged promotions. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Ginsters: Vegan Quorn Pasty (180g) vs Original Cornish Pasty (227g)

The same-brand pair Which? (2022) compared (then 0.88-1.11 vegan vs 0.64-0.86 original per 100g across chains). † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Hellmann's: Plant Based Mayo vs Real Mayonnaise

Live rows compare like-sized squeezy bottles within each chain (430ml both sides at Sainsbury's, 750ml both sides at Morrisons). Frozen rows compared 750ml plant vs 580ml standard, so those ratios partly reflect pack size. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Heinz: Seriously Good Vegan Mayo vs Seriously Good Mayonnaise

Sainsbury's sells both versions at 775g and at the same price. At Morrisons the vegan version is listed by volume (800ml) and the standard by weight (775g), so its ratio compares per-100ml with per-100g; treat it as approximate. A Waitrose listing for the standard product was excluded as a suspected stale or promotional record. † frozen at the last aggregator snapshot (22 Jul 2026): this chain has no compliant automated price source (its site blocks non-browser clients or its terms bar scraping), so the row no longer updates.

Trend since Which? (2022)

How the plant/meat price ratio moved between the Which? study (average of daily prices, Aug to Oct 2022) and the current series average. The trend is shown in ratios; nominal per-100g prices are in the table below. Pairs marked * are category-level comparisons where one or both 2022 products have been discontinued or replaced, so those moves partly reflect product turnover, not price changes. Pairs marked † end at the frozen snapshot of 22 Jul 2026.

2022 figures are Which? three-month averages (Co-op: point prices supplied 5 Dec 2022); "now" figures are the latest scrape with ratios averaged over the series. Product-change flags (*): Waitrose sausages compared Mushroom & Leek vs British pork in 2022 but chorizo vs no-chorizo now; Tesco's 2022 Meat & Veg burger comparator and Asda's 2022 meat-imitation burger are no longer listed (the current Asda plant product is a vegetable burger); Waitrose's current beef comparator is a premium-tier product; Hellmann's pack sizes changed (430ml squeezy both sides in 2022, 750ml vegan vs 580ml real now). The 2022 Co-op comparator was a gluten-free pork sausage, and Co-op had just price-matched its vegan range.

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 2026 assortments and extended with mince, meatballs and additional pairs. Each pair is a plant-based product and its nearest meat/dairy/egg equivalent in the same range tier. The register (with pack sizes and matching decisions) is pairs.json.
• Prices: fetched daily direct from the retailers: Sainsbury's own product API and Morrisons product pages (both primary sources; each data row records its source). Until 22 Jul 2026 the other chains were covered via the aggregator trolley.co.uk; that stopped after a review of its terms of use (they bar automated access), and those rows remain in the history as a frozen series, marked † in the tables. Tesco and Ocado prohibit scraping in their website terms, and Asda, Waitrose and Co-op block non-browser clients, so those chains have no compliant direct source and their rows stay frozen.
• Unit prices: pounds per 100g/100ml computed from the pack price and the register's hand-verified pack weight, with the retailer's own displayed unit price as a cross-check. (Frozen aggregator rows used the same register weights; the aggregator's own multipack unit prices were wrong and were not used, except for two single-container products.)
• Shelf prices only: loyalty-card prices (Nectar, Clubcard) and multibuy offers are recorded but excluded from all figures, matching the Which? approach.
• Averaging: Which? averaged three months of daily prices; this site shows the latest day's prices and averages ratios over the accumulating daily series (57 days so far, since 7 Jul 2026).
• Coverage gaps: live daily prices cover Sainsbury's (own-brand and branded pairs) and Morrisons (branded pairs; it has no comparable own-brand plant range in these categories). Sainsbury's delisted its Plant Pioneers mince and vegan mayo by July 2026, so those two own-brand pairs are frozen. Tesco, Asda, Waitrose, Co-op and Ocado are frozen at 22 Jul 2026 (no compliant automated source); M&S was never covered.

Data

• Full daily history: history.json / history.csv (one row per product, store and date, with provenance).
• Pair register with matching decisions: pairs.json.
• Wholesale (foodservice) comparison: separate page.
• Code: github.com/akanepajs/uk-food.