CHOICE has released the results of the third wave of its quarterly, government-funded report on supermarket prices across Australia.
The consumer group visited 104 supermarkets across the country in September, including Aldi, Coles, Woolworths, and IGA, and recorded the prices of 14 common grocery items. CHOICE also added two spotlight items this quarter - a leg of lamb with the bone in and 2L of ice-cream.
"Coles and Woolworths came equal first nationwide when we looked at the best price for a leg of lamb with specials. Coles and Woolworths both sold a leg of lamb at an average of $12.89 per kilo, while Aldi came in third place at $13.99 per kilo," says CHOICE CEO, Ashley de Silva.
"Even when taking specials out of the picture for the leg of lamb, Aldi still didn't have the cheapest product. Without specials, Woolworths was still the cheapest, followed by Aldi, then Coles," says de Silva.
For the leg of lamb comparison, mystery shoppers purchased a leg of lamb with the bone in, and the price per kilo was recorded. IGA was excluded from this price comparison as CHOICE could not consistently find a comparable item in the stores we visited.
When it came to prices for the 14-item basket, the supermarket with the cheapest groceries was no surprise.
"For the basket of 14 items with specials, Aldi was once again the cheapest option for shoppers. Including specials, Aldi's basket cost on average $50.63. Coles came in next at $66.18, followed by Woolworths at $69.17. IGA was the most expensive option with their basket costing $73.80," says de Silva.
"When excluding specials in our basket of 14 items, the price at Aldi remained the same. However, the price at Coles increased slightly to $67.90, and at Woolworths to $69.29. An IGA basket without specials also increased to $77.57," says de Silva.
Editor's notes:
Supermarkets and locations
We sent undercover shoppers into 104 supermarkets – 27 Woolworths, 27 Coles, 23 Aldi and 27 IGA stores – in 27 locations across Australia in September 2024. Supermarket locations were chosen to give good coverage of socio-economic status based on ABS Indexes and geographic spread across the country. We surveyed supermarkets in clusters so that each store has local competition.
Grocery basket items
Our full grocery basket consisted of 14 items, 12 of which were packaged products, either national brand or comparable supermarket brand/budget brand options (including beef mince and milk), with two fresh fruit and vegetable items (apples and carrots) completing the list.
We also included two spotlight items, a leg of lamb and a tub of ice-cream, in this survey, but they were not included in the price of the 14 item basket comparison.
Our basket included a mix of both house-brand and national-brand items. This was true for Aldi as well as Coles, Woolworths and IGA. To ensure a fair comparison, like-for-like items were chosen based on factors such as weight, ingredient lists, country of origin, and packaging similarities.
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