AUSTRALIA | CHOICE has released the results of the third wave of its quarterly, government-funded report on supermarket prices across Australia.
In September, the consumer group CHOICE visited 104 supermarkets across the country, including Aldi, Coles, Woolworths, and IGA, and recorded the prices of 14 common grocery items.
Supermarket locations in Australia were chosen to give good coverage of socio-economic status based on ABS Indexes and geographic spread across the country. These supermarkets were surveyed in clusters so that each store had local competition.
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 sold a leg of lamb at an average of AUD 12.89 per kilo, while Aldi came in third place at AUD 13.99 per kilo,” said 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.”
Mystery shoppers purchased a leg with the bone in for the leg of lamb comparison, 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 visited.
Regarding 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 costs, on average, AUD 50.63. Coles came in next at AUD 66.18, followed by Woolworths at AUD 69.17. IGA was the most expensive option, with their basket costing AUD 73.80,” added 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 AUD 67.90 and at Woolworths to AUD 69.29. An IGA basket without specials also increased to AUD 77.57.”
The full grocery basket consisted of 14 items, 12 of which were packaged products, national or comparable supermarket brand/budget brand options (including beef mince and milk), and two fresh fruit and vegetable items (apples and carrots).
CHOICE 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.
For a fair comparison, like-for-like items were chosen based on weight, ingredient lists, country of origin, and packaging similarities.
