How Much Does Chicken Cost in the UK?
Short answer: on October 19, 2026, standard chicken breast fillets cost £6.90 a kilo at Tesco and Sainsbury's and £7.00 a kilo at Asda. Aldi's Everyday Essentials fillets cost £4.25 a kilo.
Chicken breast is the largest per-kilo gap in the UK basket, and it is a tier story, not a store story. Here is what we verified, tier by tier.
The prices we verified
Tesco British Chicken Breast Fillets, 1kg pack: £6.90 (£6.90/kg). Sainsbury's British Fresh Skinless and Boneless Chicken Breast Fillets, 1kg: £6.90 (£6.90/kg). Asda British Chicken Breast Fillets, 1kg: £7.00 (£7.00/kg).
Aldi Everyday Essentials Chicken Breast Fillets work out at £4.25/kg. Aldi's standard Ashfields tier is much closer to the big three: the 650g pack is £4.69, which is £7.22/kg, and the 2kg pack is £12.29, which is £6.15/kg.
Pack size matters everywhere. At Tesco, the 350g pack works out at £7.63/kg and the 650g pack at £7.54/kg, against £6.90/kg for the kilo pack. The small pack habit costs about 70p extra per kilo.
What is a good deal on chicken?
Our guidance: standard fillets at or below £6.50/kg are a deal; the Nectar offer at Sainsbury's this week (two 640g packs for £8) works out at £6.25/kg and qualifies. The £6.90/kg shelf price is the normal price, not a rip-off, but it is not a bargain either.
Judge the Aldi budget tier on its own terms. At £4.25/kg it saves £2.65 on every kilo against the standard tier. If your household is happy with it, that is the single biggest weekly saving in this basket.
Why chicken prices move
Chicken sits in the ONS meat class, which was almost flat in the year to August 2026, up just 0.1%, and fell slightly in the month. Feed and energy costs have stabilised, and shelf prices reflect that calm.
The prices that move are promotional: multi-buy loyalty mechanics like the Sainsbury's 2 for £8, and the quiet per-kilo differences between pack sizes, which never make the headlines.
How to pay less for chicken
Buy the kilo pack and portion it yourself. The pack-size penalty at Tesco is about 10% for the same chicken in a smaller tray.
Run the tier test honestly: buy the budget fillets once and cook them the way you normally do. A kilo a week at £4.25 instead of £6.90 is worth about £138 a year.
Check chicken against our weekly tracker. We reprice fillets per kilo every week, including the loyalty multi-buys.
Chicken is the protein line where tiers and pack sizes quietly set your bill. Track what you actually pay per kilo with free receipt scans, and Premium will flag when your regular chicken changes price.