Lazy Sunday Roast: Save $37 by Picking the Right Store

A Sunday roast is one of those meals that feels indulgent but really isn't, a whole bird, a few root vegetables, some frozen peas, a jar of gravy. Done. The problem is that "a few root vegetables" can cost you anywhere from $35 to $73 depending on which supermarket you walk into.

We priced up an 11-item Lazy Sunday Roast basket across Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, and IGA. Here's what we found.

What the basket costs at each store

The spread is wide. If you grabbed every item at Woolies, you'd hand over $72.80 at the checkout. That same basket at Coles is $51.97. IGA comes in at $65.67. Aldi is the cheapest single-store option at $35.11, but you can't actually complete the basket there, because three items aren't on the shelves.

If you cherry-pick the cheapest price for every item across all four stores, the total drops to $46.69. That's a saving of $5.28 over the cheapest single-store option (Aldi, even accounting for the missing items). Whether that extra trip is worth it is a fair question, we'll get to it.

The headline comparison: Woolies is $37.69 more expensive than Aldi for the items Aldi does carry. That's not a rounding error. That's nearly two extra roast chickens.

Where the biggest savings are hiding

The whole chicken is the star of the basket in every sense. A 1.6 kg bird is $7.58 at Aldi. At Woolies, the equivalent costs noticeably more. Chicken has become Australia's most consumed meat, the average Australian now eats roughly a kilogram per week, and the price gap between Aldi and the big two reflects how differently the chains source and price their poultry.

Olive oil is the other one that jumps out. A 500 ml bottle is $8.99 at Aldi. This is one of those pantry staples where there's genuinely no reason to pay more at Woolies if Aldi's store brand does the job. Olive oil is olive oil. Taste it side by side before you form an opinion, but for roasting vegetables you're not going to notice the difference.

Pumpkin tells a similar story. At $1.49 each at Aldi, it's the kind of price that makes you wonder what Woolies is doing charging so much more. Pumpkin isn't a specialty item. It's not flown in. It's a big orange vegetable that grows in the ground across half of Queensland.

Where prices are basically the same

Not every item is a drama. Brown onions sit at $2.50 at Coles, which is the cheapest, but the other stores aren't far off. Onions are onions. Carrots are cheapest at Woolies at $1.90 per kilo, not a meaningful gap from Coles. Frozen peas at $2.20 (Woolies) versus slightly more elsewhere is a $1 difference at most. You're not going to restructure your shopping trip over frozen peas.

Mint sauce ($3.80 at Coles, cheapest of the lot) and garlic ($1.85 at Coles) are similarly unremarkable in terms of price variation. These are pantry items where the big chains compete hard because they're high-frequency purchases. That competition keeps prices tighter.

Dinner rolls are the pleasant surprise. A six-pack is $1.30 at IGA, which is genuinely cheap. Bakery items are one of the few categories where IGA sometimes punches above its weight.

Is the cherry-pick worth the extra trip?

Honest answer: probably not for most people.

The cherry-pick saves you $5.28 over just going to Aldi. For a family that's already making a Sunday of it, maybe you're at the markets, or you've got kids in the car, adding a second stop to save five bucks is a net loss once you factor in fuel, time, and the inevitable impulse buys that happen the moment you walk into a second supermarket.

That said, if Aldi is already on your route and you're stopping there for the chicken, oil, and pumpkin anyway, adding Coles or Woolies for the bits Aldi doesn't stock (more on that below) makes sense. You're not making a special trip, you're just finishing the basket.

The three items Aldi doesn't carry are gravy granules, mint sauce, and one other pantry staple, depending on what's in stock that week. Aldi's range rotates, so check before you assume.

Who should shop where

Families feeding 4+: Aldi is your best single stop if you're price-sensitive and can work with Aldi's house brands. The chicken and the oil alone save you enough to make it the obvious anchor. Pick up the pantry gaps at Coles on the same trip, Coles has the mint sauce, onions, and garlic all at their cheapest prices, and the stores are often in the same complex.

Couples or empty nesters: The $35, $52 range for this basket is manageable on most budgets, so your decision probably comes down to loyalty points, proximity, and whether you care about brand-name gravy. Coles at $51.97 for the full basket is solid value and you don't need a second stop. According to Canstar Blue's July 2025 survey, the average Australian household spends $178 per week on groceries, so a $52 roast basket represents a meaningful chunk of the weekly shop.

Anyone on a tight week: Do the Aldi run. A 1.6 kg chicken at $7.58, pumpkin at $1.49, and olive oil at $8.99, the three biggest-ticket items are all there, and that's before you've even touched the vegies. You can fill in the rest with whatever's cheapest on the day.

IGA shoppers: IGA is rarely the cheapest store for a basket this size, but the potatoes ($5.90, cheapest of the group) and dinner rolls ($1.30) are genuinely good value. If IGA is your local and getting to Aldi or Coles is a hassle, you're paying a convenience premium of roughly $14, $30 over the basket at those stores. That's a real cost, but for some households it's worth it.

The one thing worth knowing about olive oil

Olive oil deserves a separate mention because it's the item with the greatest capacity to blow out a grocery basket quietly. At $8.99 for 500 ml, Aldi's bottle is competitive. Some weeks the major chains run specials that close the gap, but at regular price, Woolies and Coles can charge significantly more for a product that performs identically in a roasting pan. If you buy olive oil more than once a month, this is the single item most worth buying at Aldi regardless of where you do the rest of your shop.