The Retailers With the Cheapest Weekly Grocery Haul: Report

BravoDeal analyzes costs at 6 U.S. grocers

3/1/2024

In BravoDeal's assessment, ALDI ranked first for the cheapest weekly grocery spend.

A company that aggregates coupon codes and online offers on its website is also checking into savings at grocery stores. The team at BravoDeal recently analyzed the cost of an average weekly shop for a three-person household, using prices from six major American grocery banners.

According to BravoDeal’s new report, ALDI ranked at the top for the least expensive baskets, with an average weekly cost of $185.18. The retailer that prides itself on savings beat competitors with items like eggs, which were priced at $1.71, and bread, with store brand L’Oven Fresh loaves ringing up at $1.29.

The other most affordable weekly tabs came from the following food retailers, ranked in descending order and each offering the lowest price in at least one product type:

Walmart: $225.22
Target: $239.62
Kroger: $284.78
Sam’s Club: $523.22
Costco: $552.90

Marco Farnararo, CEO and co-founder of BravoDeal, noted that the study comes at a time when many consumers are striving fill their carts to meet their budgets while feeding themselves and their families. “Groceries have gone up by approximately 25% since 2020, according to Bloomberg, so consumers are keen to find the best deals and the best value retailers to do their weekly shop with,” he remarked.

The tallies were based on a market basket analysis used by the data science platform Kaggle. The platform works by searching for combinations of items that occur together frequently in transactions, ultimately creating a list of products bought in the average weekly grocery shop. According to BravoDeal, the cheapest form of each product was found for corresponding weights, and the cost of each product was added together to determine the grand total for each of the six stores evaluated.

With more than 2,300 stores in 38 states, Batavia, Ill.-based ALDI U.S. is No. 26 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2023 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. Each week, about 255 million customers and members visit Walmart’s approximately 10,500 stores and numerous e-commerce websites in 19 countries. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company and owner of Sam’s Club is No. 1 on The PG 100. Minneapolis-based Target Corp. is No. 6, Cincinnati-headquartered The Kroger Co. is No. 4 and Costco Wholesale of Issaquah, Wash., is No. 3.