Budget Lunchbox: Save $15 at Aldi vs IGA

Packing five lunches a week adds up fast. Multiply the weekly shop across a full school term and even a few dollars per trip makes a real difference. We priced an 11-item school lunchbox basket across Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and IGA to find out where your money goes furthest.

What This Basket Costs at Each Store

Here's the full-basket damage if you buy everything at one store:

• Aldi: $41.47
• Woolworths: $49.80
• Coles: $50.13
• IGA: $56.57

Aldi is the clear winner. It comes in $8.33 cheaper than Woolies, $8.66 under Coles, and a whopping $15.10 less than IGA for the exact same basket. That's not a rounding error, that's a week of school lunches at IGA versus six weeks of school lunches at Aldi, for the same outlay.

This lines up with what CHOICE found in its March 2025 lunchbox survey, where Aldi was the cheapest supermarket for a similar basket of school lunch products, with Woolworths and Coles both sitting well above.

If you cherry-pick the cheapest item from whichever store prices it lowest, the basket drops to $39.48, saving a further $1.99 on top of the Aldi price. We'll come back to whether that's actually worth it.

Where the Cheapest School Lunchbox Groceries Are Found

Most of the big savings are concentrated in the fridge and pantry aisles, and Aldi dominates almost every category.

Yoghurt pouches are the standout. Aldi prices a 6-pack at just $0.69. That's the kind of price that makes you do a double-take in the aisle. Woolies and Coles charge significantly more for branded equivalents. If you're buying these every week across a 10-week term, the savings from this single item alone add up.

Bread is another one. Two 650 g loaves of white bread cost $2.39 at Aldi. Bread is one of those items where Coles and Woolies have both been under pressure from shoppers and advocacy groups to keep prices down, but Aldi still undercuts them. Given you'll typically go through two loaves in a school week across multiple kids, this matters.

Ham (200 g, $3.29 at Aldi), cheese slices (250 g, $3.49 at Aldi), and tuna (4-pack, $3.29 at Aldi) all follow the same pattern. Aldi's house-brand versions consistently beat the name-brand equivalents at the big two. The quality gap, for sandwich fillings in a lunchbox, is basically zero.

Bananas are worth a special mention: $0.81 per kilogram at Aldi. Produce pricing bounces around with the seasons, but Aldi generally keeps banana prices tight. At that price you're looking at roughly 30 cents per piece of fruit, which is hard to beat.

Where Prices Are Basically the Same

Two items are where the spread across stores tightens up.

Vegemite (220 g) is cheapest at Coles at $5.20, and the gap to other stores is modest. It's a pantry staple that most families buy infrequently, so this isn't a weekly battleground, but it does mean Coles edges Aldi on this one item.

Plain biscuits (250 g) are also cheapest at Coles at $1.25. Again, the difference is small. If you're already at Coles and picking up Vegemite, grabbing the biscuits makes sense. But it's not worth a separate trip.

For apples and sultanas, Aldi wins but the gap to Woolies isn't dramatic. Produce prices shift week to week, and both stores run seasonal promotions that can flip the winner at any given time.

Is Cherry-Picking Worth the Extra Trip?

Honest answer: probably not for most families.

Cherry-picking, buying each item from its cheapest store, gets the basket down to $39.48. That's a saving of $1.99 compared to buying everything at Aldi. For two stores, that saving barely covers the petrol, let alone the extra 20 minutes of your morning.

The real cherry-pick opportunity only kicks in if you already have a Coles nearby and you're there anyway. In that case, pick up the Vegemite and the plain biscuits there, and do the rest of the shop at Aldi. You'll bank the small difference without adding a separate trip.

If you're choosing between going to one store or two specifically to save $1.99, the maths just don't support it.

Who Should Shop Where

Aldi, for most families: If you've got an Aldi nearby and you're not brand-loyal on sandwich fillings or yoghurt pouches, Aldi is the obvious call for this basket. The house-brand stuff is genuinely good enough for a lunchbox, and the savings over a full term are real money.

Woolies or Coles, if Aldi isn't convenient: Woolies at $49.80 edges Coles at $50.13 by 33 cents, that's a coin flip. Don't stress the choice between the two big supermarkets; the real gap is between either of them and Aldi. If loyalty points matter to you (Everyday Rewards or Flybuys), factor that in.

IGA, only if you have no other option: At $56.57, IGA is $15.10 more expensive than Aldi for this basket. That's a significant premium. IGA stores vary a lot by owner and location, so it's possible your local one runs specials that close some of that gap, but the baseline price for this basket is hard to justify when Aldi and the big two are available.

The Bottom Line on School Lunch Costs

The school lunchbox is one of the most repeated grocery purchases Australian families make, five days a week, roughly 40 weeks a year. According to research from the University of Wollongong, the average daily lunchbox costs around $10 per child when you factor in all the components. Cutting your weekly shop by $8 at Aldi versus Woolies over a full year adds up to around $400 back in your pocket, per family. That's not nothing.

The basket is built around practical staples, bread, cheese, ham, fruit, tuna, a drink. Nothing exotic. These are exactly the items where Aldi's private-label model beats the branded alternatives on price without sacrificing much on actual quality in the lunchbox.

Aldi is the answer for the cheapest school lunchbox groceries in Australia right now. The only reason to shop elsewhere is geography.