Ask Nick – Supermarket Hierarchy

A really good question from Ian:

We all know that there is a supermarket hierarchy, as Alan Coren said “The best thing about Sainsburys is that it keeps the riff-raff out of Waitrose.” So my question is, what is the proper place of each supermarket in that hierarchy? (I’m assuming a supermarket must have at least half a dozen branches, so Fortnum & Mason doesn’t count!)

I reckon that the hierarchy runs something like this, in descending order of ‘poshness’:

  1. Waitrose
  2. Sainsbury’s
  3. Tesco
  4. Asda
  5. Co-op
  6. Morrison’s
  7. Budgen
  8. Iceland
  9. Lidl
  10. Aldi

I’m excluding Marks and Spencer’s Food Halls from the list as M&S isn’t really a supermarket as such. If it were to be placed, though, it’d probably have to go at the top.

I know I’ve left quite a few supermarkets out of this list, but I think I’ve got all the major ones.