This report used a superseded method. Do not cite it.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: Woolies wins at $69.79

Cuugo Team · Fri 21 Aug 2026· 2 min read

Woolworths wins this week's Cuugo basket at $69.79, which is $6.07 under Aldi and $27.82 under IGA. Cherry-picking the cheapest store per item gets you to $62.81, a $6.98 saving over Woolies alone.

Woolworths takes this week's basket at $69.79, beating Aldi ($75.86) by just over six dollars and undercutting IGA ($97.61) by nearly $28. If you cherry-pick the cheapest store on every single item, you land at $62.81, a $6.98 saving versus sticking with Woolies alone.

Coles clocks in at $267.75 this week, which looks alarming until you look at the item breakdown. The Coles cavendish banana price is listed at $195.00, almost certainly a data anomaly rather than a real shelf price. Pull that out and Coles sits in a much more normal range. Treat the Coles total as not directly comparable this week while that figure is reviewed.

IGA's total ($97.61) is also flagged as not directly comparable, one item was unavailable.

What moved week-on-week

Woolies dropped $13.05 from last week's $82.84, which is the biggest swing across any store in both directions. No single clear reason stands out from available data, so we're not guessing. Aldi crept up $1.14 to $75.86. IGA edged up $1.55 to $97.61.

Where the per-item gaps are biggest

A few items are worth routing around:

Chicken breast fillets, $4.99 at Aldi vs $14.20 at Coles. That's a $9.21 gap on one product.
Weet-Bix, $6.88 at Aldi vs $17.20 at IGA. Shop IGA for this one and you're paying more than double.
Long grain rice, $1.80 at Coles vs $7.20 at IGA. A $5.40 difference on a pantry staple.
Tasty cheese block, Woolies at $5.20 is the pick here, well under IGA's $9.00.
Beef mince, Coles has it at $5.50; IGA charges $11.00.
Toilet paper, $4.30 at Woolies vs $13.49 at Aldi. One of the few items where Aldi is the dearest option by a wide margin.
Penne, $0.90 at Coles. Cheapest item in the whole basket by some distance.

Full cream milk, sliced bread, eggs, apples, carrots, bananas (excluding the Coles anomaly), and butter all sit within a tighter band across stores, so those aren't worth driving across town to save.

From 1 July 2025, new federal price-gouging laws came into effect for Australian supermarkets, with the ACCC now policing financial penalties for overcharging. It's early days, but we'll be watching the weekly numbers closely for any movement.

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: 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 one additional staple. The same 15 items are priced every Friday at Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and IGA so the trend stays consistent week to week.

Why is the Coles total so high this week?

The Coles basket total of $267.75 is driven by an apparent data anomaly on cavendish bananas, which are listed at $195.00. This almost certainly doesn't reflect the real shelf price. We've flagged it for review and the Coles total should be treated as not directly comparable this week.