quest peanut butter cup: 50% off at Aldi

Peanut butter in a 45g jar sounds like an odd format until you actually think about it. Lunchboxes. Hiking snacks. A single serve at the office. These little jars get used, and the price gap between stores this week is genuinely wild.

The price gap is bigger than you'd expect

Aldi has Nougat Bliss Peanut Butter 45g for $1.49. Coles has the exact same product for $3.00. That's double the price for 45 grams of peanut butter. Woolworths is running it on special at $2.00 (down from $4.00), which sounds good until you compare it to Aldi. IGA is $2.85 on special, down from $3.00.

So the spread this week runs from $1.49 to $3.00 depending on where you shop. On a $1.49 product that's a 100% price difference between the cheapest and most expensive option. Across the four stores, the average price sits around $2.34, meaning Aldi is saving you roughly 85 cents compared to just picking it up wherever you happen to be.

On a per-100g basis it gets even messier. Aldi works out to $3.31 per 100g. Woolworths is $2.94 per 100g on special, which is actually the best unit rate right now if you're buying multiple jars. But Coles comes in at $7.14 per 100g and IGA at $6.79 per 100g. That's a striking difference and it's worth keeping in mind if you're comparing small-format products like this to a larger jar.

Is $1.49 actually a good price, or just Aldi being Aldi?

Aldi tends to price small impulse-buy products aggressively, and this is no different. The $1.49 price point doesn't appear to be a limited special, it's their standard shelf price. That's useful to know because it means you're not racing a clock to grab it.

Woolworths' half-price special ($2.00 down from $4.00) looks dramatic on the shelf tag, but the $4.00 regular price is steep for 45g. The sale brings it to a more reasonable spot, but it's still 51 cents more than Aldi's everyday price. Once that special ends, it goes back to $4.00, which is $7.14 per 100g territory, the same uncomfortable range as Coles.

The honest read: $1.49 is a good price for this format. It's not a once-in-a-year deal, but if you're already shopping at Aldi, there's no reason to pay more elsewhere.

How the unit price changes the story

For snack-sized or single-serve products like this, unit pricing does something funny. A 45g jar will always look expensive per 100g compared to a 500g jar from the same brand, that's just maths. So if you're buying Nougat Bliss as a pantry staple and going through it regularly, a standard 375g or 500g jar is almost certainly better value per gram.

But that's not really what the 45g format is for. You're paying a small premium for the portion size and the convenience. At $1.49, that premium is pretty modest. At $3.00, you're paying twice as much for the same convenience.

Woolworths' $2.00 special is the interesting one here. The unit rate of $2.94 per 100g actually beats Aldi's $3.31 per 100g. If you're buying a few of these at once, Woolworths on special is technically the sharper deal per gram. But for a single jar, saving 51 cents at Aldi is real money.

Smarter ways to shop this category

If Aldi isn't convenient for your regular shop, it's still worth knowing where the other options land. Woolworths' half-price special makes it the second-best option this week, but check the app before you go, specials on products like this can end mid-week.

Private-label peanut butter is also worth a look. Both Coles and Woolworths have their own-brand peanut butter in larger formats, usually priced well below branded options per 100g. If you're after peanut butter flavour and don't need the single-serve format specifically, their home-brand 375g or 500g jars will almost always be cheaper per gram than any branded 45g product at any store.

Aldi's own peanut butter products are similarly solid on price and tend to sit in the same aisle as Nougat Bliss. Worth a compare while you're there.

One more thing: if you're buying these for kids' lunchboxes, it's faster to grab a six-pack or similar multipack if your store stocks it, the per-unit cost usually drops when they're bundled, and you're not fishing around for individual jars every week.

The one thing to check before you buy

Aldi's stock of branded items like Nougat Bliss can be inconsistent. They carry it regularly, but it's not impossible to find the shelf empty. If you're making a trip specifically for this, it's worth having a backup plan, especially if you've got school lunches to sort.

At $1.49, Aldi is the clear pick this week. Woolworths on special is a reasonable second if Aldi doesn't work for your shop.