16 December 2025
CHOICE has released the latest results of its quarterly supermarket basket survey, this time with a focus on entertaining essentials ahead of Christmas.
The consumer advocacy group compared the cost of 20 items across Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and IGA – including seven base basket items, plus 13 products you might choose to serve your guests if you’re hosting a festive gathering.
“This quarter, we’ve chosen to focus on a basket of some of the products you might buy if you’re entertaining this Christmas. As well as our base basket items, we’ve added in products such as crackers, olives, pretzels, hummus, and Camembert cheese,” says CHOICE Editorial Director, Mark Serrels.
“Without including specials, our full basket of 20 items was cheapest at Aldi, coming to a total of $72.41. There was quite a significant gap between Aldi and the second-cheapest store, Woolworths, where the basket of items without specials cost $98.98. Coles was next, with the basket coming to $100.04, followed by IGA at $109.25,” says Serrels.
“When including specials, Aldi was still the cheapest, with the price remaining the same as our basket without specials at $72.41. The Woolworths basket with specials was $93.17, while at Coles it was $100.04, and $105.38 at IGA,” says Serrels.
This quarter, CHOICE also compared the freshness of mixed lettuce purchased across all four supermarkets.
“At CHOICE, we often get asked which supermarket has the freshest produce. While we can’t answer that question for every product you might want to buy, in this quarter’s survey we asked our mystery shoppers to assess the freshness of bagged lettuce two days after it was purchased,” says Serrels.
“In this survey, there was some evidence of decay in the mixed lettuce purchased at all supermarkets, but Coles ultimately received the highest score for freshness, with 77% of shoppers noting all of the leaves were still fresh after two days. Woolworths came in second at 70%, followed by IGA at 67% and Aldi at 64%,” says Serrels.
Editor’s notes:
Supermarkets and locations
Fieldworkers priced groceries at 104 supermarkets in 27 locations across Australia in September 2025.
Grocery basket items
Our base basket includes:
- Full cream milk
- Sanitarium Weetbix
- Royal Gala apples
- Carrots
- Cavendish bananas
- Strawberries
- Chicken breast fillets, bulk pack
Entertaining essentials for this quarter:
- Cherry tomatoes
- Bagged mixed salad
- Stuffed olives
- Rice crackers
- Savoury crackers
- Twisties
- Pretzels
- Dried apples
- Mineral water
- Salted peanuts
- Hummus
- Camembert
- Frozen pies and sausage rolls
