Publication lag by brand, in bands
Lag is the gap between a retailer's two own timestamps: when the price took effect, and when they published it. Nothing here is measured from when we looked. It is publication timing — not a score, not a ranking of honesty, not compliance with any duty.
The window. 291,526 price changes over 113 readings, to . Submission timestamps reach us only in what we collect ourselves.
Share of changes falling in each lag band
Sorted by median lag, fastest first
TINT = SHARE IN A BAND OVER 30 MIN · 0–2% · 2–10% · 10%+
| Brand · stations · n | Under 1 min | 1–5 min | 6–15 min | 16–30 min | 31–60 min | Over 60 min | Median | p90 | ≤30 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Esso | 82.4% | 8.5% | 8.8% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | <1 min | 4 min | 99.8% |
| BP | 89.2% | 4.2% | 5.4% | 1.0% | 0.1% | 0.2% | <1 min | 1 min | 99.8% |
| Texaco | 84.1% | 12.8% | 1.8% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.9% | <1 min | 3 min | 98.9% |
| Morrisons | 97.2% | 1.2% | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.5% | <1 min | <1 min | 99.1% |
| Jet | 84.7% | 14.3% | 0.5% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.4% | <1 min | 1 min | 99.6% |
| EG On the Move | 99.9% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0.1% | <1 min | <1 min | 99.9% |
| Asda | 90.6% | 0.5% | 1.5% | 2.3% | 2.4% | 2.7% | <1 min | <1 min | 95.0% |
| Gulf | 99.5% | 0.3% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0.2% | <1 min | <1 min | 99.8% |
| Valero | 95.0% | 4.1% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.4% | <1 min | <1 min | 99.5% |
| Asda Express | 99.6% | 0.1% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0.2% | <1 min | <1 min | 99.8% |
| Murco | 97.0% | 0.7% | 0.5% | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.9% | <1 min | <1 min | 98.9% |
| Welcome Break | 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | <1 min | <1 min | 100% |
| Circle K | 97.4% | 0.6% | 2.0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | <1 min | <1 min | 100% |
| Essar | 93.2% | 6.6% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0.3% | <1 min | <1 min | 99.7% |
| Central Convenience | 76.8% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 23.2% | <1 min | 55931 min | 76.8% |
| Spar | 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | <1 min | <1 min | 100% |
| Solo | 92.7% | 2.1% | 4.7% | 0.3% | 0% | 0.2% | <1 min | <1 min | 99.8% |
| Pace | 99.5% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0.5% | <1 min | <1 min | 99.5% |
| Maxol | 63.8% | 8.1% | 23.6% | 3.1% | 0.1% | 1.2% | <1 min | 13 min | 98.7% |
| Costco Wholesale | 96.7% | 1.9% | 0.8% | 0.5% | 0% | 0% | <1 min | <1 min | 100% |
| Sainsburys | 68.1% | 31.5% | 0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% | 0.1% | <1 min | 2 min | 99.8% |
| Total | 65.6% | 33.2% | 1.1% | 0% | 0% | 0% | <1 min | 1 min | 100% |
| BP Harvest Energy | 56.7% | 40.4% | 2.2% | 0.1% | 0% | 0.7% | <1 min | 2 min | 99.3% |
| Shell | 37.3% | 43.8% | 17.5% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 1.2% | 3 min | 6 min | 98.7% |
| Tesco | 24.9% | 42.5% | 32.4% | 0.2% | 0% | 0% | 4 min | 7 min | 100% |
How the bands are built
The six bands cover every change; none is dropped. Each is elapsed time between the retailer's effective and submission timestamps, and each upper edge is inclusive — so the thirty-minute edge is exactly the one the compliance column counts against. A change published before the price took effect carries a negative lag and is counted below rather than folded into "under 1 min".
Which brands are ranked, and which are not
25 of 45 brands are ranked. A distribution needs 500 changes to describe a retailer rather than a few forecourts on one afternoon. 20 fall short and are on the compliance monitor with their sample size. Another 20,653 changes belong to 972 retailers below the five-station threshold.
Source: price changes published between 17:39 on 27 Jul 2026 and 18:00 on 21 Sept 2026. Lag is the retailer's submission timestamp minus their effective timestamp.
This is not a compliance score
How to read a fast or slow lag
Under a minute means automated filing. Five minutes may be a person, or a batch on a timer — neither is a failure. The scheme sets no deadline we could measure against, so there is no pass mark here: only how long things took, and how often.