A new pricing study found that grocery prices vary sharply across different stores in the same city, creating potential savings for shoppers willing to visit multiple retailers.
The Strategic Resource Group and Consumer Reports National Pricing Study compared prices at dozens of chains across six metro areas. Researchers tracked identical products within the same 48-hour window in each city, including weekly sale items but not manufacturer coupons or app-only deals.
Warehouse clubs delivered the biggest discounts. Costco and BJ's offered prices roughly 21% below Walmart's baseline, though both charge annual membership fees of $65 and $60. Lidl and Aldi undercut Walmart by roughly 9% and 8%. Kroger ran roughly 15% higher than Walmart, Albertsons about 25% higher, and Whole Foods roughly 40% higher.
Even among mainstream grocery chains excluding Walmart and warehouse clubs, each city showed at least a 33% price difference. In Virginia Beach, the gap between the cheapest and most expensive comparable grocery baskets was just over $35, but in Los Angeles it reached almost $69.
Some items showed dramatic variation. Researchers found examples of Maxwell House coffee, Barilla pasta, and Cheerios where the most expensive price was roughly double the cheapest price within the same city.
Whether multiple trips pay off depends on your vehicle's fuel economy, gas prices, and driving distance. The median distance to the nearest grocery store is 0.9 miles nationally; to the third-closest store, 1.7 miles. Rural households travel considerably further, with a median of 6.1 miles to the third-closest store. If extra driving adds less than 10 miles to your trip, fuel costs may not offset grocery savings for most vehicles. Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, estimates cherry-picking at multiple stores could save a typical household as much as $5,000 a year.