Prices, Products and Baskets
GROCERYchoice provides information about the price of typical grocery baskets from a range of supermarket retailers, located within 61 different regions across Australia.
The basket prices are calculated using the prices of approximately 500 grocery products. These products include branded and private label (e.g. ‘Woolworths Select’ and ‘You’ll Love Coles’) grocery products that make up a large proportion of the average Australian household's grocery expenditure.
The prices collected reflect those at which the products can be purchased at the time of the survey, and includes special prices. However, the prices collected will not reflect those that have been reduced as a result of product damage or products that are nearing their ‘best before’ or ‘use by’ date.
The basket prices for each supermarket retailer represent the average weekly basket price for that retailer within a specified region, and not the price for a specific individual supermarket outlet.
Prices are calculated for the following grocery baskets:
- Meat & Seafood
- Fruit & Vegetables
- Dairy
- Breads & Cereals
- Drinks & Other Snacks
- General Groceries
- Household & Personal Care
The price of an additional ‘Basic Staples’ basket is also calculated. This basket includes a range of staple products from the other baskets, including milk, bread, fruit and vegetables and meat.
At ALDI supermarkets, owing to their smaller product range, not all of the 500 products included in the survey can be found. To address this, a smaller number of staple products have been selected and are presented as the ‘Basic Staples’ basket. The Basic Staples basket is the only basket that lists an ALDI supermarkets price.
The ACCC has implemented a range of measures to ensure the quality and integrity of the grocery price data collected and published.
An independent product tester has been engaged to ensure that the grocery products in each of the baskets across supermarket retailers are of the same quality and therefore allow meaningful price comparisons to be made. This is necessary because the various baskets include a range of private label products that need to be matched to other brand or private label products available from other supermarkets retailers.
It should be noted that the quality of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat products can vary between supermarket retailers over time. Consumers should take this into account when making price comparisons for baskets that contain these products.
To prevent the manipulation of the price survey and the published results the individual product list for each supermarket retailer will remain confidential to the ACCC. Additionally, the sample of products included within the survey will be rotated on a regular basis.
As the products included in the baskets vary from one period to the next it is not appropriate to compare basket prices over time.
For further information about the types of products included in each of the baskets see
Basket Categories