sweet corn: $1.00 vs $5.90 across stores

A 90-cent snack doesn't sound like much. But if you're grabbing a handful of these for lunchboxes or desk snacking and you're paying $1.50 each, that adds up fast. This week Woolworths has the Macro Wholefoods Market Air Popped Corn Sweet & Salty 20g on special, and it's the cheapest it's been across any of the four major stores we track.

What you'll pay where

Woolworths has it at $0.90, down from its regular $1.50. Coles is sitting at the full $1.50 with no special on. IGA has it on special too, dropping from $1.90 to $1.50, which sounds like a deal until you realise that's still 60 cents more than Woolies right now. Aldi doesn't carry this product under the Macro label, but does stock its own air popped corn at $0.99 for a 20g serve.

So if you're buying, say, five of these for the week, Woolworths saves you $3.00 over Coles or the regular IGA price. Against the average price across all four stores, you're saving $1.80 on a single pack. That's not nothing.

Is $0.90 actually a good deal?

For air popped corn as a category, yes. These small single-serve snack packs usually hover between $1.00 and $1.80 at major supermarkets, depending on the brand and whether it's a health-positioned product. Macro sits at the top end of that range at its full $1.50, so the current Woolies price puts it solidly in budget territory.

The Macro range is Woolworths' own wholefood-focused private label, so you're essentially getting a house brand at a discounted house brand price this week. That's a decent proposition. The air popped corn itself is simple: it's corn, a bit of sugar, salt. No artificial colours or flavours, which is what the Macro branding is built around. You're not paying for anything fancy here, and that's fine.

Worth keeping in mind: Woolies specials on single-serve snack packs like this tend to run for one to two weeks, not all month. If you want to stock up, now's the time rather than assuming it'll still be 90 cents next fortnight.

How it stacks up as a snack option

At 20g, this is a controlled portion. That's both the appeal and the limitation. For lunchboxes, it's ideal. You're not opening a large bag and watching half of it go stale, and kids can eat the whole thing without you worrying about the size. For adults snacking at a desk, one pack is probably not enough on its own, but paired with something else it does the job.

Calorie-wise, 20g of air popped corn is light. It's one of the lower-calorie snack formats you'll find in this section of the supermarket, which is why it tends to attract shoppers watching their intake without wanting to feel punished by their snacks. Sweet and salty is the more crowd-pleasing flavour in this format because the salt cuts the sweetness and makes it feel more satisfying than plain.

If you're buying these regularly and not just this week, it's also worth knowing that the per-100g price tells a different story to the per-pack price. At $4.50 per 100g from Woolworths on special, it's not cheap by weight. You're paying for convenience and portion control, not bulk value.

Smarter ways to buy if you snack on this stuff often

If you go through a lot of popcorn snacks, the single-serve 20g format is the most expensive way to buy. Most supermarkets stock larger bags of air popped corn in the 100g to 200g range, either under their own private labels or from other brands, and the per-gram cost drops considerably. You'd be looking at portioning it yourself into small containers or zip bags, which takes about thirty seconds but can cut your cost per serve by more than half.

Aldi's own air popped corn is worth a look if you shop there. At $0.99 per 20g serve this week, it's nine cents more than the Woolies special, but Aldi's version is available regardless of whether there's a sale on. Aldi's house brand snacks in this category are generally solid quality and the price doesn't fluctuate much.

Coles and IGA don't have anything compelling on air popped corn this week. Coles' own private label snack range does occasionally have similar products at a lower price point than the branded options, so it's worth a quick check in the health snack aisle if you're already shopping there.

One more thing: if you're buying these for school lunchboxes and you go through five or more a week, it genuinely makes sense to grab a multipack or a larger format bag and portion them out. The per-serve saving over a term adds up to actual money, not just cents.

Right now though, 90 cents at Woolies is the best price you'll find on this specific product across any store we track.