Weekly Supermarket Offers & Leaflets in the UK

Guide to Weekly Leaflets, Offers and Grocery Savings in United Kingdom

Shopping culture and the weekly publication cycle

Weekly leaflets are part of everyday grocery shopping in United Kingdom. Instead of walking through a store to find out what is on sale, many shoppers read the leaflet first, build a list around the offers and only then decide where to buy. CatalogueThisWeek collects 56 current leaflets from 36 retailers in United Kingdom, so one page replaces a dozen separate websites. Start with the main groups of stores: Groceries, House & Garden, Clothing & Shoes and Department Stores.

Most new leaflets in United Kingdom start on Wednesday, and a typical leaflet stays valid for about 30 days. Those figures come from the leaflets that are currently in our index, not from an assumption, and they change whenever retailers change their schedule. Many chains publish the next leaflet a few days before it begins, which gives you time to compare it with the current one. Every leaflet on this site shows its exact start and end date, so check it before you plan a trip.

National and seasonal events shape the promotional calendar as well. Christmas, Easter, the start of the school year and the summer sales usually bring larger or longer leaflets, and many retailers publish a dedicated Black Friday edition in late November. When a retailer releases a special edition, we add it next to its regular leaflet, so you can see both before you decide where to shop.

Leading supermarket chains and the discounter landscape

The grocery market in United Kingdom combines full-service supermarkets, large hypermarkets and hard discounters. Among the stores with a current leaflet on our site, the busiest are Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Poundland and Waitrose. Each of them has its own hub with the active leaflet, upcoming editions and a short archive, so you can open the retailer you normally use and compare it with the others in a few clicks.

Hard discounters such as Aldi, Lidl and Poundland build their offer on a limited range and low everyday prices, so their leaflets often feature non-food specials and seasonal items. Full-service chains such as Tesco, Waitrose and Asda carry a wider range and use the leaflet to promote fresh food, brands and multi-buy deals. Neither model is always cheaper: compare the same basket across two or three leaflets before you shop, and look at the price per kilogram or litre rather than the headline number.

Many retailers tie part of their weekly offers to a loyalty programme. In United Kingdom the ones you will meet most often include Lidl Plus (Lidl), Clubcard (Tesco) and myWaitrose (Waitrose). A price printed in a leaflet can differ from what a card holder pays, so read the small print on each page and check whether a card or app is needed to get the advertised price.

How to get the most out of weekly leaflets

Compare unit prices, not shelf prices. A larger pack with a deep discount is not always the cheaper choice once you divide by weight or volume, and a multi-buy offer only saves money if you would use every item. Write your list first, mark the offers that match it and ignore the rest: impulse purchases are where most of the savings in a leaflet disappear.

Plan around validity dates. A leaflet that ends tomorrow is still useful for a quick top-up shop, but stock-dependent offers are often gone by the last day. If the next edition is already shown, you can wait for it when the product you need is not urgent. Remember that offers apply only within the dates printed on the page and while stocks last.

Use the store pages to follow the retailers you trust: Aldi and Lidl are good places to start, and category hubs such as Department Stores and Clothing & Shoes group similar stores side by side. Our figures update whenever a retailer publishes a new leaflet, and older editions stay available in each store's archive for a short time.