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Flickr: Elliot Brown

Morrisons has narrowly come out cheapest in a study of grocery essentials for October.

The monthly study, conducted by mySupermarket.co.uk, the shopping and comparison website, monitors the cost of the same 35 most-commonly bought grocery products.

Overall, it found that a basket of essentials rose slightly from £85.94 in September to £86.16 in October.

The October increase was driven by a sharp rise in the cost of broccoli, up 18 per cent, and mushrooms, up 11 per cent. Only apples fell significantly in price, dropping 11 per cent in price compared to September.

The small rise follows a period of falling grocery prices, with the September basket total of £85.94 having been the lowest in 2015.

mySupermarket analysed the basket cost across the top four supermarkets, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, and Morrisons, plus Waitrose and Ocado, and found significant differences in price.

Morrisons was the cheapest closely followed by Asda. Ocado was most expensive, with Waitrose coming second bottom.

When compared to a year ago, though, the same basket in October 2014 would have cost shoppers £89.74, a saving of 4 per cent.

Gilad Simhony, CEO of mySupermarket.co.uk, said: 'One side effect of the current supermarket price war - the environment in which supermarkets are fighting for shoppers hard earned pounds - is that the cost of grocery staples are being priced very competitively.

'This is great news for shoppers who are looking to make savings. Another side effect, however, is more confusion regarding which of the supermarkets is cheapest as the price of our favourite grocery products can change on a daily basis. Shoppers need to be aware and take control of their weekly shop as the differences in price can be huge.'