Fill it up!

Yesterday in Costco opens in Sydney and Mum’s ultimate shopping basket comparison Mum explained the background behind our recent retail adventure in Sydney.

Regular readers will know that I’m an Aldi convert, read: Photo Friday #10: Gotta love Aldi. It took me a long time to convince myself to shop at Aldi and I’m still not wild about the shopping experience, but if it saves us money, at a time where we’re saving hard to be financially secure again following our relocation to Aus, then I’ll stick with it.

I forced myself to get used to Aldi, and now feel happy with their brands and products, but I still wanted to be sure it’s the cheapest option. Hence the adventure…

Australian supermarket shopping basket comparison

Last week, in Sydney, I compared the price of 23 products, in four of the main Australian supermarkets: Coles, Woolworths, Franklins and Aldi. I chose products that we buy weekly or fortnightly. This is what I discovered:

The ranking from cheapest to most expensive

Australian supermarket Total for 23 weekly shopping items
1 Aldi $63.86
2 Coles $79.04
3 Woolworths $82.70
4 Franklins $86.20

The ranking surprised me because I thought Franklins was cheaper than Coles and Woolworths. I was glad to see that my effort to shop at Aldi isn’t in vein.

Significant differences

  • Coles and Woolworths are the cheapest place to buy milk – you might have heard about the $2 per litre price wars.
  • Coles and Woolworths often charge exactly the same price for branded items, what saves money is whether they have a home brand version or not, wherever it was possible to do so I listed the home brand price.
  • An example of buying a well known brand versus a less known brand is pasta: San Remo is the most common brand of pasta sold in Australia. A 500g bag of San Remo Penne Pasta cost $2.25 in Coles and Woolworths, and $2.40 in Franklins. In Aldi an alternative brand costs 79c per 500g.
  • Tinned products are significantly cheaper in Aldi, but they won’t be brands you’re used to.
  • Aldi sell 1kg of brown onions for half the price that Coles do, or 1kg of carrots for half the price that Woolworths do.
  • 12 eggs from Aldi cost around the same as 6 eggs in other stores.
  • A litre of Olive Oil is around $3 cheaper in Aldi than in Coles and Woolworths.

Thoughts and feelings

Mum’s experiment is a snap shot of what I’d put in my basket and how much it would have cost, last week, in Sydney. Prices in Australian supermarkets change and may differ between towns, cities, states and territories. Please don’t spam me if something costs a few cents more or less where you live!

I also appreciate that the products available throughout the country may differ. The Coles and Woolworths I visited didn’t always have home brand items available. If you live near a Coles or Woolworths that is overflowing with home brand products you will be able to reduce the cost of your weekly shop significantly.

As we’ve already mentioned, Mum was surprised that Franklins were the most expensive. We understood them to be a lower-end supermarket than Coles and Woolworths. The store Mum visited was smaller than the branch of Woolworths we took prices from. We wonder whether this makes a difference.

Comparing isn’t easy

Comparing the supermarkets side my side gave Mum a good feel for what’s on offer. Following this research and because we’ve been living here for over eighteen months now, we’ve come to realise that;

  • Coles and Woolworths are in big competition. Prices are often the same and brands sold very similar.
  • In Aldi you don’t see any well-known brands, which is why shopping here can be off putting at first. Sometimes products are sold in larger sizes but at the same price as other supermarkets, so overall it’s a good cost saving option.
  • Something we hadn’t noticed before is that stores sell the same products in many different quantities. It was tricky to compare the price of Weetbix. I was looking for the price of a 1kg box but found 750g in one store, 1.2kg in another, 1.3kg in another and finally 1kg. Perhaps this will start a supermarket conspiracy but the cynic in me wondered whether this is a clever move by retailers and producers to avoid direct cost comparisons. The same was true for washed potatoes; none of the stores packaged them in the same weight bag. You might grab a bag of spuds one week from Coles and be buying 3kg worth, and then think you’re getting a bargain the following week in Woolies but actually it’s only a 2.5kg bag.
  • It’s also difficult to compare the price of meat when stores label things differently. Mum continues to be baffled by the labels on mince meat. In Coles you get a star rating for your mince (3 star is cheaper and 5 star the most expensive). In Woolworths Mum always looks for the ‘Heart Smart’ option, and in Aldi they actually label the meat “extra lean” so we know where we stand. It’s impossible to truly compare prices when shops follow different standards and naming conventions.

Speed shopping is never going to save money

I mentioned yesterday that by nature I’m a speed shopper. I don’t enjoy grocery shopping and would rather be doing a million other things, including writing this blog; but I also don’t want to be irresponsible with my family’s hard earned cash. When it comes to grocery shopping my experience and research has concluded that the savvy Aussie shopper might benefit from the following grocery shopping strategy;

  • get kitchen cupboard and fresh food staples from Aldi.
  • shop around for special occasion items like meat for a BBQ. You might not get the best quality or selection in Aldi so it would be worth looking in Coles and Woolworths, or going to an independent butcher.
  • get washing powder and softener in larger, better value sizes at stores such as Big W.
  • buy nappies in Coles: Buying disposable nappies in Australia – which brands, what should you pay?
  • get international products you can’t live without in Coles or Woolworths, and whilst you’re there stock up on milk!

How have you done your grocery shopping since moving to Australia? Did you get it right from the outset or have you changed where you shopped initially? If you have, why did you change? We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences, especially if you can share money saving tips for other mums moving to Aus. Thank you!

For completeness, here’s a picture of the prices Mum tracked in her snap shot of grocery shopping in Sydney:

July 2011 prices

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