Need to know
- Our latest grocery basket mystery shop has found that Aldi is the cheapest supermarket, followed by Woolworths, then Coles
- Shopping at Aldi can save you about 25% on our basket of 14 items, compared to buying comparable products at Coles and Woolworths. Aldi has been consistently cheaper than its competitors in our four surveys since 2015
- Our aim is to give you clear information on prices across a basket of commonly purchased supermarket items and help you make better choices at the checkout
Remember when you could pick up a bunch of everyday items from the supermarket and still get change from $50? Those days seem long gone.
Household budgets across Australia are being squeezed tighter than ever before and the price of basic grocery items has skyrocketed.
Unsurprisingly, the latest CHOICE Consumer Pulse survey reflects this. We found the cost of food and groceries is a concern for a huge 87% of households.
The level of trust people have in supermarkets has also plummeted … with 39% reporting they don’t trust supermarkets to provide the best service and products to meet their needs
The level of trust people have in supermarkets has also plummeted in the last 12 months, with 39% reporting they don’t trust supermarkets to provide the best service and products to meet their needs. When Woolworths and Coles announced massive profits during a cost-of-living crisis in 2023, it prompted us to award the supermarket duopoly a Shonky.
Against this backdrop of increasing distrust of our big supermarkets and continuing concerns over the price of food and groceries, CHOICE has received funding from the federal government to run supermarket price research every quarter for three years.
Our regular examination of prices across the country will not only help hold supermarkets to account, but also help shoppers save money on their groceries.
Our regular examination of prices across the country will not only help hold supermarkets to account, but also help shoppers save money on their groceries
“Our latest report shows that Aldi continues to offer the best value for Australian shoppers on a range of groceries,” says CHOICE CEO Ashley de Silva.
“We sent mystery shoppers to regional and metropolitan supermarkets nationwide to record prices for 14 grocery items, and we’ll continue to deliver quarterly price analysis reports so Australians can stay on top of where they can find the cheapest groceries, to help relieve some of the pressure on household budgets.”
On this page:
The cheapest supermarket in Australia
Our price analysis shows that Aldi has the cheapest groceries nationwide, based on a basket of 14 commonly bought grocery items including milk, bread, sugar, pasta and tea bags and two fresh fruits and vegetables (you can see our full shopping list below).
We recorded regular prices and special prices from 81 supermarkets across the country. We mostly shopped at Aldi, Woolworths and Coles, but also at IGA where there were no Aldi supermarkets to compete with Coles and Woolies.
We conducted these as ‘mystery shops’, which means the supermarkets were unaware of the shoppers’ purpose or connection with CHOICE.
The Aldi basket is more than 25% cheaper than the equivalent basket at Coles
The average cost of the basket of 14 grocery items across the supermarkets we surveyed is $63.74.
Our basket of brand products cost on average $69.33 at Coles and $68.58 at Woolworths (with no specials), while a comparable basket of Aldi brand products was just $51.51.
That means the Aldi basket is more than 25% cheaper than the equivalent basket at Coles, and will save you around $17 on the products we selected (which included both national brand and house brand products).
Our basket of products cost on average $69.33 at Coles and $68.58 at Woolworths, while a comparable basket at Aldi was just $51.51.
Coles and Woolies neck and neck
Intensive price monitoring between the ‘ColesWorth’ duopoly means that grocery prices at both chains are very closely matched. Just 0.75c separated the prices of our basket of 14 items at Coles and Woolworths without specials.
When we tracked the same products and noted special prices, however, the basket of products was $68.52 at Coles and $64.93 at Woolworths – Woolies being cheaper than Coles by $3.59.
How does IGA compare?
IGA is an independent grocery brand, which means that rather than following the chain store model of Aldi, Coles and Woolworths, individual stores operate as franchises and are owned and operated independently.
This means that different items are stocked by each IGA store and prices vary between stores, making it difficult to fairly compare.
We did, however, assess the price of our grocery basket at IGA stores in Tasmania and the Northern Territory when there was no Aldi store in the local area. We were only able to compare the cost of 10 items (four items were not included because comparable items were not in stock at these IGA stores at the time).
The cost of shopping at IGA was substantially higher than at Coles and Woolworths
The cost of shopping at IGA was substantially higher than at Coles and Woolworths.
In the Northern Territory, the 10 items cost $46.75 at IGA, compared to $33.54 at Woolworths and $33.79 at Coles. However, we should note that prices and supply in the Northern Territory were impacted by Tropical Cyclone Megan and its aftermath at the time of this survey in March 2024.
In Tasmania, the cost of the IGA basket was $41.05, compared to $33.50 at Woolworths and $34.40 at Coles.
We included IGA stores in our survey when there were no Aldi stores nearby. We were only able to compare 10 items at these locations because of stock supply issues at IGA at the time of our survey.
The importance of choice
According to Statista, the supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths rake in 65% market share between them.
When compared to somewhere like the UK, where market share is more evenly spread between four main players – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Aldi – it’s clear that Aussies don’t have quite as many options when it comes to choosing where to do our grocery shopping.
It’s harder for Australians to vote with their feet by shopping elsewhere if they’re unhappy with any aspect of their local Coles and Woolworths
In the financial year 2023, the Woolworths Group held the largest share of the grocery retail market in Australia, with a share of 37%. The Coles Group came in second with a 28% market share, Aldi third with 10% and IGA (Metcash) fourth with just 7%.
All of this means that, unlike shoppers in many overseas jurisdictions, it’s harder for Australians to vote with their feet by shopping elsewhere if they’re unhappy with any aspect of their local Coles and Woolworths.
Does where you live make a difference to grocery prices?
Our analysis found that where you live does make a difference to how much you pay for groceries.
Which state has the most expensive groceries?
The average cost of our basket of supermarket goods for each location indicates that, on average, shoppers in Tasmania and the Northern Territory are paying a lot more each week for their groceries because they don’t have the option to shop at Aldi instead of Coles and Woolworths.
On average, shoppers in Tasmania and the Northern Territory are paying more for their groceries because they don’t have the option to shop at Aldi instead of Coles and Woolworths
In the locations where shoppers had access to Woolworths, Coles and Aldi, we found that Western Australians are paying more on average for their groceries, amounting to around a dollar more for this basket of goods than in most other parts of the country.
Metro vs regional areas: who is paying more?
Our research found that people in capital cities are paying slightly more than shoppers in regional areas.
On average, people outside Australian capital cities save 70c on our basket of groceries (with no specials) compared with shoppers in capital cities, paying $63.18 for 14 items compared to $63.88.
| Location | Number of stores shopped | Average basket price (with specials) | Average basket price (without specials) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capital cities | 62 | $62.30 | $63.88 |
| Outside capital cities | 15 | $61.68 | $63.18 |
What’s in our basket?
As much as possible we choose the same product brands across the supermarkets.
Some national brand products will be available at Aldi (such as Weet-bix and Lipton tea), and then we use comparable products for the other items (e.g. house brand flour).
When we have to compare products from different brands we look at nutrition panels, country of origin and other product information to ensure they’re as close as possible.
How we survey supermarkets
Supermarkets and locations
We sent undercover shoppers into 81 supermarkets – 27 Woolworths, 27 Coles, 23 Aldi and 4 IGA stores – in 27 locations across Australia in March 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. We used IGA stores only when there was no Aldi store nearby.
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.
For more details on how we survey, see How we survey supermarket grocery prices.
Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.