Grocery Price Index: Aldi $77.63, Coles $73.55
This week's Cuugo basket holds steady at every store, Coles leads on total price at $73.55, but cherry-picking saves you $14.52 more.
Every Friday, Cuugo prices the same 15 staples at Coles, Woolies, Aldi and IGA. No swaps, no substitutes, the basket is fixed so the numbers are actually comparable week to week. The full methodology and running chart live on the Grocery Price Index hub.
This week's totals
| Store | This week | Last week | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coles | $73.55 * | $73.55 * | Unchanged |
| Aldi | $77.63 | $77.63 | Unchanged |
| Woolies | $82.64 | $82.64 | Unchanged |
| IGA | $103.92 * | $103.92 * | Unchanged |
\* One item was unavailable at this store, so the total is not directly comparable to stores where all 15 were in stock.
All four stores held flat this week. No movement to explain, the numbers are what they are.
Coles comes in cheapest among the fully-stocked stores. At $82.64, Woolies is $9.09 more for the same basket. IGA's $103.92 is the highest, though the missing item means you'd need to shop elsewhere for the full 15 anyway.
Where the gaps are biggest
The basket total only tells part of the story. A few individual items have wild price swings depending on where you shop:
- Chicken breast fillets: $4.99 at Aldi vs $14.20 at Coles. That's a $9.21 gap on a single product.
- Weet-Bix: $6.88 at Aldi vs $17.20 at IGA. Yes, $17.20.
- Long grain rice: $1.80 at Coles vs $7.20 at IGA, four times the price for the same type of product.
- Penne: $0.90 at Coles vs $2.49 at Aldi. Coles wins easily on pasta this week.
- Toilet paper: $4.60 at IGA vs $13.49 at Aldi, one of the few lines where IGA undercuts the discounters.
- Cavendish bananas: $4.86 at Aldi vs $8.19 at Woolies. Worth grabbing these at Aldi if you're already there.
- Beef mince: $5.50 at Coles vs $11.00 at IGA. A $5.50 gap on one item covers a lot of the extra trip cost.
The cherry-pick verdict
If you buy each item at whichever store has it cheapest this week, the basket comes to $63.11, that's $14.52 less than Coles, the cheapest single-store option.
Whether that saving is worth a two-stop shop depends on how close the stores are to each other. But for households going to both a major and Aldi anyway, the cherry-picks above are worth knowing before you reach the shelf.
The ACCC's ongoing proceedings against Coles and Woolies over misleading discount pricing claims are a reminder that the sticker price and the "deal" price aren't always what they seem. Comparing across stores on a fixed basket, like this one, cuts through that noise.
Frequently asked questions
What's in the Cuugo Grocery Price Index basket?
The basket contains 15 common staples: 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 are priced every Friday at Coles, Woolies, Aldi and IGA.
Which supermarket is cheapest for groceries in Australia right now?
Based on this week's Cuugo basket, Coles is the cheapest single store at $73.55 (one item unavailable). Aldi comes in at $77.63 for the full 15 items. Cherry-picking the cheapest price per item across all stores brings the total to $63.11.