Grocery Price Index: Woolies Drops $5.26 This Week
Woolies fell $5.26 week-on-week to $73.99, while Coles held the cheapest full comparable basket at $72.75. Cherry-picking saves another $11.29.
The biggest move this week is Woolies dropping $5.26 to hit $73.99, the largest single-week fall we've recorded in recent weeks. We don't know exactly which items drove it, so we'll leave the speculation there and let the numbers do the talking.
Coles came in at $72.75, though one item was unavailable, so that total isn't directly comparable to Woolies' full basket. Aldi landed at $75.93 and IGA at $102.92, IGA is also missing one item, so treat that figure the same way.
The cheapest possible basket, buying each item wherever it's cheapest this week, comes to $62.70. That's $11.29 less than the cheapest single-store full basket.
Where the gaps are biggest this week
A few items have price spreads wide enough to shift your whole shop:
- Weet-Bix: $6.88 at Aldi vs $17.20 at IGA, a $10.32 gap on one box of cereal.
- Chicken breast fillets: $4.99 at Aldi vs $14.20 at Coles. That's not a typo.
- Long grain rice: $1.80 at Coles vs $7.20 at IGA.
- Beef mince: $4.99 at Aldi vs $10.00 at IGA.
- Toilet paper: $4.50 at Coles vs $13.49 at Aldi. Aldi's cheaper on most things, but not this week on loo roll.
- Tasty cheese block: $5.20 at Woolies vs $9.00 at IGA.
Milk, bread, eggs, and bananas all show meaningful gaps too. Full cream milk runs from $3.30 at Aldi to $4.40 at IGA. Sliced white bread is $3.00 at Aldi, $5.30 at IGA. Free range eggs: $5.00 at Woolies, $6.40 at IGA. Bananas flip the script, Aldi's cheapest at $4.86, but Woolies is the dearest this week at $8.19.
Penne is the best value item in the basket: $0.90 at Coles. Butter sits at $3.99 at Aldi and $5.95 at IGA.
Week-over-week at a glance
| Store | This week | Last week | Change | |, -|, -|, -|, -| | Coles | $72.75 * | $72.25 | +$0.50 | | Woolworths | $73.99 | $79.25 | -$5.26 | | Aldi | $75.93 | $74.53 | +$1.40 | | IGA | $102.92 * | $101.02 | +$1.90 |
\* One item unavailable, not directly comparable to a full basket.
The full item-by-item price table is on the Cuugo Grocery Price Index hub, updated every Friday.
Frequently asked questions
What's in the Cuugo grocery price index basket?
The basket has 15 everyday staples tracked every Friday: full cream milk, sliced white bread, free range eggs, chicken breast fillets, Weet-Bix, apples, Cavendish bananas, carrots, tasty cheese block, beef mince, long grain rice, penne, butter, toilet paper, and laundry powder. The same 15 items, every week, so you can see genuine price trends over time.
Why is IGA so much more expensive than Coles or Woolworths?
IGA stores are independently owned and don't have the same buying power as the big two chains. They also tend to serve areas where there's less direct competition, which affects pricing. The gap on some items, like Weet-Bix at $17.20 vs Aldi's $6.88, is especially stark this week.