This report used a superseded method. Do not cite it.

The Cuugo Grocery Price Index was rebuilt in August 2026 after a review found the product matching had picked the wrong product on roughly 40% of lines. Weeks from 12 June to 21 August 2026 are affected, including this one.

These weeks are retired rather than corrected, because the price history needed to recompute them honestly does not exist. The page stays up so the record is not rewritten.

What the audit found

Each line below is a product the Index actually priced. The matched product changed from week to week, so not every defect appears in every week.

Basket item	Was priced as	Stores
Beef mince	sausage mince, and pork and beef mince at Aldi	Woolworths, Coles, Aldi
Chicken breast fillets	frozen crumbed nuggets at Coles, crumbed schnitzel at Aldi	Coles, Aldi
Tasty cheese block	cream cheese or cottage cheese	all four
Full cream milk	oat milk	Aldi
Free range eggs	cage eggs	Aldi
Long grain rice	brown rice, and microwave rice pouches at IGA	Woolworths, Aldi, IGA
Cavendish bananas	a $195.00 line for banana snack puffs on 21 August, which took the published Coles total to $267.75	Coles
Toilet paper	a 32 roll pack counted as 5,760 single sheets	Aldi
Weet-Bix	a bran cereal at Aldi and a chia breakfast bowl at IGA	Aldi, IGA
Carrots	baby carrots	Woolworths, Aldi
Penne	spirals at IGA and gluten free penne at Aldi	IGA, Aldi

What changed, and what the current Index measures

Post · price index

Grocery Price Index: Aldi leads, down $2.91

Cuugo Team · Fri 14 Aug 2026· 2 min read

This week's Cuugo basket: Aldi drops $2.91, Coles edges down, Woolies creeps up, and IGA hits $96. Here's what moved.

Every Friday, Cuugo prices the same 15 staples at Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and IGA. Same basket, same methodology, week after week. The full price table and trend chart live on the Cuugo Grocery Price Index hub. This post is the weekly snapshot.

This week's basket totals

Store	This week	Last week	Change
Coles	$72.55*	$73.44	-$0.89
Woolworths	$82.84	$82.14	+$0.70
Aldi	$74.72	$77.63	-$2.91
IGA	$96.06*	$96.52	-$0.46

\* One item was unavailable at this store this week, so the total isn't directly comparable to stores where the full basket was in stock.

Aldi had the biggest swing, dropping $2.91 in a single week. Woolies moved the other way, up $0.70. Coles ticked down slightly. IGA barely budged.

Cherry-picking the cheapest price for each item across all four stores gets you to $62.29, that's $12.43 less than buying everything at the single cheapest full-basket store.

Where the biggest gaps are

Some items this week have jaw-dropping price differences between stores. A few worth calling out:

Weet-Bix is $6.88 at Aldi versus $17.20 at IGA. Same cereal. The gap is $10.32.

Chicken breast fillets sit at $4.99 at Aldi but hit $14.20 at Coles. That's nearly triple the price. ABS CPI data shows beef, lamb and goat are up around 13% year-on-year, so meat prices in general are under pressure, which makes the store gap on chicken even more worth watching.

Long grain rice is $1.80 at Coles and $7.20 at IGA. Four times the price for a pantry staple.

Toilet paper flips the script: IGA is cheapest at $4.60 this week, while Aldi is dearest at $13.49. It's a good reminder that Aldi doesn't win everything.

Penne is the only item where Coles ($0.90) beats Aldi ($2.49) by a clear margin. Worth grabbing a few packets while that price holds.

The produce gap is consistent: apples are $4.08 at Aldi versus $7.90 at IGA, and Cavendish bananas go from $4.86 at Aldi up to $8.19 at Woolies. Carrots buck the trend slightly, Coles is cheapest at $2.40, with Woolies at $3.80.

Tasty cheese is worth switching stores for: $5.20 at Woolies, $9.00 at IGA. Same goes for butter, $3.99 at Aldi, $4.50 at Coles.

Milk and eggs follow the usual pattern. Full cream milk runs from $3.30 at Aldi to $4.40 at IGA. Free range eggs from $5.00 at Aldi to $6.40 at IGA. Beef mince from $5.50 at Coles to $11.00 at IGA.

The bottom line this week: if you're shopping at a single store, Coles has the lowest comparable full-basket total at $72.55. Aldi made the biggest move down this week. And if you're doing a split shop across two stores, mixing Coles and Aldi on the high-gap items gets you closest to that $62.29 cherry-pick figure.

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 pasta, butter, and toilet paper. The same items are priced at Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and IGA every Friday.

Why do some store totals say 'not directly comparable'?

If one or more items in the basket were out of stock or unavailable at a store that week, the total will be lower simply because fewer items were counted. We flag this clearly so you're not comparing apples with oranges, pun intended.