Over the weekend I hopped in the car and drove up to the local shops. My mission, to find out which of the major supermarkets could offer the best value shopping basket for a list of well known brands and products, as well as the very lowest price when substituting using house brands and other lesser known suppliers.
I visited Coles, Woolworths and Aldi. Aldi was added to the mix as past price comparisons suggests that it is offering the closest price challenge to the majors outside of the volume players such as Costco.
20kg of basmati rice and three hours later my task was over. Two things struck me at this point. Firstly at $6.50 per 5kg bag I couldn't say no and secondly I was actually quite surprised at how many cheaper substitutes I had been able to find.
My shopping list, in the table below, is intended to represent a mix of common staples and for consistency sake is based on what I selected for our last shopping comparison.
The substitute products were generally, but not exclusively, house brands such as Woolworths Select, Woolworths homebrand, Coles and Coles $mart buy. Aldi's products on the other hand are almost exclusively house branded.
Generally I found that the vast majority of the products on my list did indeed have acceptable lower cost substitutes. Where there was some difference, it was usually in volume or quantity. Although items like nappies and tinned tuna proved to be a bit tricky to correlate. The rule of thumb for selecting these was basically, more for less.
A number of items such as bread, potatoes, fruit and vegetables had no obvious substitute. I have marked these products in red. Rice was similar, in that while both Coles and Woolworths had significant savings available for bulk purchases the 2kg packages were actually slightly more expensive than the 1kg reference product. I'd also note that replacement eggs were the cheapest like for like available, in this case 70g cage eggs as opposed to 70g free range.
Meats were also difficult to substitute and for the purposes of this article I left the meat items as is. Although as a reference point the cheapest identifiable red meat was a kilogram of soup bones for $4.49 at Woolworths and $4.50 at Coles. As a more palatable measure of price Woolworths had a kilogram of thin beef sausages for $5.34, Aldi $4.98 and Coles $4.12. Blade steak was likewise $12.00 at Coles, $11.98 at Woolworths and $8.99 at Aldi.
Prices are based on a single item basis. For accuracy I did not include 2 for 1 offers, or other bulk deals. However where there was a specials price on an individual item it was included. Also I did not include individual clearance prices on perishable items like meats as I felt it was just too random.
And the winner between Coles and Woolworths? Coles by a nose, coming in at $92.19 vs. Woolworths at $93.49. However technically Aldi pipped them both at the post with the grand total of $86.21.
| Products |
Desc. |
Woolworths |
Wool. best |
Coles |
Coles best |
Aldi |
| Potatoes |
1kg |
$1.98 |
$1.98 |
$2.28 |
$2.28 |
$1.99 |
| Bread (white) |
650g |
$1.00 |
$1.00 |
$1.00 |
$1.00 |
$0.99 |
| Huggies Nappies (toddler) |
36 |
$20.98 (31) |
$13.99 (50) |
$19.98 (56) |
$13.99 (44) |
$13.99 (50) |
| Dairy Farmers / Pura Milk |
2l |
$3.49 |
$2.00 |
$3.69 |
$2.00 |
$1.99 |
| Colgate Total |
110g |
$2.97 |
$1.27 |
$4.79 |
$1.27 |
$1.29 |
| Only Organic (baby food) |
110g |
$1.35 |
$1.12 |
$1.35 |
$1.27 |
$0.99 |
| Nescafe Gold Original |
100g |
$8.35 |
$3.98 |
$8.35 |
$3.98 |
$3.99 |
| Arnotts Milk Arrowroot |
250g |
$1.89 |
$1.09 |
$1.89 |
$1.09 |
$1.09 |
| Apples (Royal Gala/Pink Lady) |
1kg |
$5.97 |
$2.25 |
$5.98 |
$2.80 |
$1.49 |
| Field Grown Tomatoes |
1kg |
$3.98 |
$3.88 |
$2.98 |
$2.98 |
$1.39 |
| Continental Cucumber |
1 |
$0.96 |
$0.96 |
$1.78 |
$1.78 |
$1.49 |
| Carrots |
1kg |
$1.98 |
$1.45 |
$1.98 |
$1.98 |
$1.39 |
| Daily Juice - Orange |
2l |
$4.99 |
$3.99 |
$5.00 |
$2.50 |
$2.99 |
| Lamb Loin chop |
1kg |
$15.99 |
$15.99 |
$18.00 |
$18.00 |
$15.99 |
| Porterhouse Steak |
1kg |
$24.07 |
$24.07 |
$21.00 |
$21.00 |
$19.99 |
| Pace Free Range Eggs |
12 |
$5.99 |
$2.71 |
$5.09 |
$2.71 |
$2.55 |
| Meadow Lea |
500g |
$3.49 |
$1.39 |
$3.00 |
$1.09 |
$1.39 |
| Sirena Tuna in Springwater |
1 |
$2.24 |
$1.09 |
$2.24 |
$0.89 |
$1.89 |
| San Remo Spaghetti |
500g |
$2.25 |
$0.59 |
$2.25 |
$0.59 |
$0.79 |
| Dolmio Classic Tomato |
550g |
$2.19 |
$1.59 |
$2.20 |
$1.99 |
$1.39 |
| Glad Wrap |
60m |
$4.29 |
$1.39 |
$4.69 |
$1.51 |
$1.39 |
| Edgell Corn Kernals |
310g |
$1.64 |
$0.94 |
$1.64 |
$0.94 |
$0.89 |
| Heinz Big Red |
500ml |
$1.99 |
$1.29 |
$2.29 |
$1.19 |
$1.19 |
| Sun Rice Long Grain |
1kg |
$2.79 |
$2.79
|
$2.67 |
$2.67
|
$2.99 (2kg) |
| Whiskas |
400g |
$1.63 |
$0.69 |
$1.63 |
$0.69 |
$0.69 |
| Total |
|
$128.45 |
$93.49 |
$127.75 |
$92.19 |
$86.21 |
Clearly buying house brands can save you money. With this shopping list it was a not insubstantial, $34.96 at Woolworths and $35.56 at Coles. And aside from the cleverly differentiated packaging there did not seem to be a huge difference in the quality of the products themselves. In fact many of the house brands offered more for less as standard.
And if you go down this path you are not alone. A recent Eye On Australia report* has found that 40% of Australians are now buying house brands, with 65% strongly agreeing that they are just as good quality as brands.
Interestingly just over half the people polled were concerned that their favourite brands seem to be disappearing from the supermarket shelves and a surprising 74% think that Coles and Woolworths have too much dominance.
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Prices were valid as of 23 October 2011. While all possible care was taken in recording these prices they should be regarded as an indicative guide only and are naturally subject to change.
* Eye On Australia - Grey Group Australia Pty Ltd 2011
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of Telstra BigPond.