Which supermarket has the cheapest groceries?

With the festive season upon us, the added expenses of gift-giving, travel and entertainment mean many of us are looking for ways to save. As we’ve consistently found in our regular Consumer Pulse surveys, the cost of food and groceries remains a concern for many people, with 86% telling us this was a worry when we last surveyed our representative sample of Australian households in June 2025. 

To help you find savings, we’ve included a range of products you might purchase when entertaining, including crackers, olives, pretzels, hummus and camembert cheese.

On this page:

• The cheapest supermarket in our survey
• What’s in our basket?
• Changes since last quarter
• Does where you live make a difference to grocery prices?
• Spotlight: The entertainment basket
• Freshness assessment
• What our results mean for consumers
• How we survey supermarkets

The cheapest supermarket in our survey

Without including specials, our full basket of 20 items cost $72.41 at Aldi, $98.98 at Woolworths, $100.04 at Coles and $109.25 at IGA. It’s important to note that in order to compare the same products as often as we could, the baskets from Coles, Woolworths and IGA contain more name-brand products than the Aldi basket. 

Buying more home-brand products from these supermarkets would bring the cost down, but we also know that shoppers often choose national-brand products when entertaining. You can see the full list of products we compared below. 

Base basket items

In our base basket of seven items, which contains apples, bananas, strawberries, carrots, Weetbix, milk, and chicken breast fillets, and without including specials, Aldi was cheapest at $31.41, followed by Woolworths ($32.20), Coles ($33.16) and IGA ($39.20). 

Looking at the individual items on our base basket list (without specials), Aldi had the best price on all seven items, though sometimes by just a few cents. 

Spotlight item prices

If you’re stocking up to entertain, our spotlight basket of 13 items, which this quarter focuses on items you might buy for a party, was cheapest at Aldi, costing $41.00. This was mostly a home-brand basket and so perhaps you’ll be more interested in the national brand items available at the other stores. 

Comparing just those baskets, we found you’ll pay very slightly less at Woolworths ($66.78) than at Coles ($66.89), showing once again how closely matched the big two are on most prices. At IGA, you’ll pay $70.05 for the same 13 items. 

Remember that paying more for a name-brand product doesn’t always mean you’re getting a better product. In our recent blind taste-test of plain crackers, included in this basket, Jatz earned the fewest votes and the Aldi Eton crackers earned the most, even though the Jatz cost $2.51 more per 225g box than the Eton. 

While most prices at Aldi, Coles and Woolworths were fairly consistent around the country, the variation in pricing at IGA means the average cost of our basket of goods was significantly higher than at the other three stores. While this is an accurate reflection of the data, you may find prices at your local IGA to be closer to what you’ll pay at other supermarkets, such is the significance of the variation between prices at different IGA stores.

Prices with specials

When you take into account the savings from the specials available at the time that we shopped, our basket from Aldi cost $72.41. It cost $93.17 at Woolworths, $100.04 at Coles and $105.38 at IGA.

Base basket items with specials

For our base basket of seven items (apples, carrots, milk, Weetbix, chicken breasts, strawberries and bananas), when we included specials we found that, for this quarter, Woolworths had the cheapest basket ($29.70) thanks to a substantial discount on chicken breasts. Aldi followed with a cost of $31.41, followed by Coles ($33.16) and IGA ($38.61). 

With specials, while Woolworths was the cheapest for chicken breasts across all the stores, Aldi had the best price on the other six items in our base basket. 

As noted in our previous reports, buying items on special can make a significant difference to overall grocery costs, which is why it’s a good idea to shop around.

Spotlight item prices with specials

When we surveyed, Woolworths had specials on savoury crackers, pretzels and salted peanuts, which widened the gap with Coles and IGA in the entertainment basket, making it $3.41 cheaper than the same products from Coles. Without specials, that difference fell to just $0.10. IGA also had specials on rice crackers, savoury crackers, pretzels and camembert when we surveyed, reducing the overall price by $3.28. This meant that IGA was slightly cheaper than Coles for these goods when taking specials into account ($66.77 vs $66.89). 

How closely matched are Coles and Woolies?

In the first seven quarters of our ongoing supermarket research, Coles and Woolies have remained similarly matched on price. While Woolworths was slightly cheaper when we shopped in March and June 2024, Coles was the cheaper of the two in September and December 2024. 

In 2025, our June report found Woolworths took the lead against its biggest rival (without specials), while in September Coles edged ahead. This quarter, Woolworths was the cheaper of the two once again. 

It remains a close contest. Without specials Woolies was $1.06 cheaper than Coles in our basket of 20 items. That difference increased to $6.87 when comparing prices with specials, one of the biggest differences we’ve seen in our comparisons. 

Six of the items in our full basket (Weetbix, milk, rice crackers, Twisties, mineral water and frozen pies and sausage rolls) were priced identically.

How does IGA compare?

IGA stores don’t have the same chain-store model as Aldi, Coles and Woolworths, with individual stores operating as independently owned franchises. That means we see quite a lot of variation between the stores in the IGA network, often due to variation in store sizes and the effect this has on the ranges.

All of this means that, while some IGA stores might be more competitive, overall, our basket of 20 items (without specials) costs nearly $10 more on average from IGA than the identical basket of goods cost us at Woolworths. 

What’s in our basket?

In this quarter, our basket included eight fresh and 12 packaged items. The products we purchased were:

• Chicken breasts, bulk pack
• Carrots
• Royal Gala apples
• Cavendish bananas
• Strawberries
• Full cream milk
• Weetbix
• 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

For all items we chose, we considered a range of factors such as ingredients, country of origin and packaging similarities to ensure we made fair comparisons. When items were unavailable, we looked for the closest alternative, just as you would when shopping for your family. Fieldworkers priced groceries at 104 supermarkets in 27 locations across Australia in September 2025.

Store-by-store lists

Changes since last quarter

Our base basket of seven items contains chicken breast fillets, carrots, Royal Gala apples, Cavendish bananas, strawberries, Weetbix and full cream milk. We’ve been surveying the price of these products since the start of our second year of quarterly surveys in June 2025.

Overall, the cost of our seven base items has fallen since last quarter. Strawberries, as would be expected for seasonal produce, fell the most, and the cost of milk rose at all four supermarkets. The biggest total reduction was seen at Woolworths, where the price of our basket dropped by 16%. At Aldi, it fell by 11%, at Coles it dropped by 6% and at IGA the cost was 4% lower compared to the last time we shopped.

Most of the reduction in prices was due to the average 57% decrease in the cost of strawberries. Woolworths also had a large reduction in the cost of breast fillets, as they were on special (21%). Milk rose on average 6% and the price of bananas fell at all stores except IGA, where they rose by 18%.

Does where you live make a difference to grocery prices?

Our analysis found that the state you live in does make a difference to how much you pay, and we also see variations between the different stores. 

The prices varied very little between Aldi stores, although Western Australian customers notably paid up to $3 more per kilogram for apples than in other Aldi locations, making their basket more expensive. WA shoppers also paid more than the other states at Woolworths, while Northern Territorians paid more than others at Coles and IGA supermarkets. 

South Australians paid less at Woolies than shoppers from other states. For IGA shoppers, Victoria had the best prices, and at Coles, ACT residents paid less than those in other parts of the country. Aldi’s Queensland shoppers got the best deal. In most of these cases it was usually cheaper fruit or vegetables in these areas that gave them the edge.

Spotlight: The entertaining basket

If you’re hosting a gathering and looking for items to serve your guests, this quarter’s basket provides a good snapshot of how you can save if you choose home-brand products over name-brand items.

Our 13 items cost just $41 at Aldi, where our basket contained mostly home-brand products. At the other three supermarkets where our baskets contained a greater number of name-brand baskets, the cheapest store was Woolworths, where we paid $66.78 (without specials). At Coles it was just $0.11 more ($66.89), once again showing how closely matched the big two supermarkets are. 

That gap widened to $3.42 when you looked at the prices with specials ($63.47 at Woolworths vs $66.89 at Coles) because Woolworths had specials on Jatz, pretzels and salted peanuts when we shopped. 

At IGA, the same basket cost $70.05 without specials, but with specials, the price fell by $3.28 to $66.77, making it $0.12 cheaper than Coles.  

As would be expected, Aldi had the best price on each item in this list, even the name-brand item (Cheese Twisties) was cheaper by $0.01 compared to Coles and Woolworths. Comparing individual prices (with specials) for the name brand items at Coles, IGA and Woolworths, IGA had the best price on rice crackers, hummus and camembert which were on special at some of the stores we surveyed. 

Woolworths was cheapest for the mixed salad bag, savoury crackers, pretzels, dried apples and salted peanuts. Coles was cheapest for cherry tomatoes. 

Freshness assessment

One concern we often hear is that buying cheaper means getting poorer quality, and frequently, fresh fruit and vegetables are cited as being of a better quality and lasting longer at one supermarket or another. 

So, which supermarket really has the freshest produce? While we can’t answer that question for every item you might wish to purchase, in this quarter’s survey, we asked our mystery shoppers to look at a product that often shows signs of decay more quickly than we would want: bagged lettuce. 

For this survey, we asked shoppers to assess the freshness of the lettuce they purchased two days after it was bought. Shoppers were instructed to keep their lettuce in the refrigerator, unopened, in the crisper drawer. Lettuce was considered fresh when it appeared crisp and not discoloured. A slimy, wet texture, strong, unpleasant odour, or a brown, mushy or limp appearance indicated decay.

In this assessment, there was some evidence of decay in the mixed lettuce purchased from all four supermarkets. However, Coles had the highest score for freshness, with 77% of shoppers telling us that all of the leaves remained fresh after two days. Woolworths was second (70%), followed by IGA (67%) and Aldi (64%).

What our results means for consumers

Our baskets of goods give us a way to get a general picture of prices in the different stores and locations we visit, but they can’t reveal the whole picture. 

Smaller ranges, as we saw at some IGA stores, and special pricing can make a big difference to overall costs. We also know that between the time we survey and the time we publish our results, prices will inevitably fluctuate. 

What our findings continue to highlight is that small changes add up to significant savings, particularly over the course of the year. 

That doesn’t only mean changing the store you shop at, we also recommend you think creatively and carefully about what you choose to put in your shopping trolley. 

There are lots of ways to save money on your weekly shop. Here are three of our top tips to help you reduce what you’re paying at the checkout. 

1. Check the unit pricing: It can be hard to compare prices of different-sized products from different brands, but unit pricing lets you compare prices based on the price per unit e.g. 100g or 1L. All supermarkets are required by law to include this information in labelling, both online and instore.
2. Shop around: Switching between stores and shopping at different supermarkets to take advantage of specials can deliver significant savings. 
3. Change your routine: Swap expensive cuts of meat for cheaper alternatives, look at frozen fruit and veg, particularly if shopping for produce out of season, and give the ugly or imperfect fruit and veg on special a go. Also, don’t be afraid to try home-brand products. Our expert testing often finds these ranges outperform more expensive options at all the supermarkets. 

It won’t change the fact that we are still paying significantly more for our groceries than we were just a few years ago, but making these small changes can add up.

How we survey supermarkets

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 2025.

Supermarket locations were chosen to give good coverage of socio-economic status based on ABS Indexes and geographic spread across the country. We survey supermarkets in clusters so that each store has local competition, and we calculate the average price of the basket of goods, both with and without specials.

A price was deemed to be a special when we had evidence of a temporary price reduction. There were 20 grocery items in each basket (8 fresh and 12 packaged items).

For more details on how we survey, see How we survey supermarket grocery prices.

---

Margaret Rafferty

Margaret Rafferty joined CHOICE in 2018 as a Content editor and since then has filled the roles of Commissioning editor, Managing editor and now Editorial consultant. Margaret has written on a wide variety of topics and enjoys making complex subjects easy to understand. With over 20 years of media experience, Margaret brings a strong storytelling background to CHOICE. She works closely with people across the organisation to help tell stories that make a positive difference to people and is passionate about uncovering bad practices and helping Australians to avoid falling victim to shonky products and services. Find Margaret on LinkedIn.

Margaret Rafferty joined CHOICE in 2018 as a Content editor and since then has filled the roles of Commissioning editor, Managing editor and now Editorial consultant. Margaret has written on a wide variety of topics and enjoys making complex subjects easy to understand. With over 20 years of media experience, Margaret brings a strong storytelling background to CHOICE. She works closely with people across the organisation to help tell stories that make a positive difference to people and is passionate about uncovering bad practices and helping Australians to avoid falling victim to shonky products and services. Find Margaret on LinkedIn.