Back at the end of April I did a post called “The market basket” where I compared the local grocery store prices. In that post, I noted that I would continue this on a semi-regular basis, and since six months has elapsed I decided to revisit the stores and see how they stack up.
In the interim the Salisbury area has lost a store (the Giant at North Pointe) and plans are afoot to build a Food Lion in Crisfield. If this pans out, the residents of Crisfield will have the next-best option behind Wal-Mart insofar as price goes, and given the distance between Crisfield and Pocomoke, it may be very competitive as long as they hold the Salisbury stores’ prices for the new location.
As a total food bill of the 20 items selected, here’s how the stores compare. (Individual items can be found here on this Word Perfect document.)
Wal-Mart $42.21 (up 0.9% from April)
Food Lion $50.56 (down 3.3% from April)
Giant $55.61 (down 0.3% from April)
Super Fresh $60.40 (up 5.9% from April)
Obviously, a lot of this depends on how many sale prices were in effect in April vs. October (my shopping date was October 29, I just held this for post-election posting.) But the trend has been prices staying pretty much the same over the six month period (except for Super Fresh), which is good news for Delmarva shoppers like myself.
So next April I’ll do this once again and see how prices react, and if Super Fresh can remain in the market. I didn’t know that the Giant that was closed was once a Super Fresh and twice now they’ve been the highest priced competitor in this survey. So it makes me wonder how long Super Fresh can stay in the game.
Wal-Mart has gone up a lot for me. One week the bread I bought went up 67% (from $1 to $1.67) 🙂 Other items have gone up too, although not as dramatically. I’ve actually started shopping at Giant again because their produce prices have gone way down. (Not as low as Wal-Mart, but they are at least competive again, and IMHO, much better quality.) Anyway, just a few more tidbits to add to your post.
I’ve noticed produce is a little bit less these days at Giant. I’ll have to see how they do on the salad I generally buy because I try to eat more of that these days. One other thing they also occasionally do is run a “5% off” coupon special…I turn in one and the little machine spits me out another.
I was wondering if you were going to do this again? I could not open the original list (I only have excel) and was wondering if you could try to post it. Prices have continued to increase, I now use coupons, but have been curious about comparing the stores to one another. Thanks!