What is the grocery store with the best prices?

Our ratings of grocery chains and stores report how each stacks up for price and quality. To compare prices, our researchers used a market basket of 150+ common items—and a lot of energy—to shop grocery-store options in seven metro areas (the Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. areas). To evaluate stores on quality of products and service, we surveyed area consumers. The results are summarized below and in the table at the end of this article.

Whole Foods appears to have lowered its produce prices since the Amazon buyout, but it remains one of the most expensive grocery chains.

When Amazon purchased Whole Foods last year, many consumers were excited by the prospect of paying Amazon-like prices for Whole Foods-quality products. But we’re not there quite yet.

Although Amazon successfully spins up media attention each time it announces a (usually minor) price cut at Whole Foods, the chain remains the most expensive option among local chains and stores we shopped in each of seven metro areas. But there has been some price movement: This time we found its overall prices were typically about 20 percent higher averages prices at other stores.

According to our research, it appears that the slight narrowing of the big price gap between Whole Foods’ and it competitors is due to lower prices in its produce department. It still offers higher-than-average produce prices, but in some markets it now offers lower produce prices than some of the more expensive grocery stores, many of which get mediocre-at-best ratings for quality.

On the other hand, Whole Foods’ meat prices remain very expensive (generally 30-40 percent higher than most other stores). And we found the prices it charges for its “365” store brand and independent brands (Whole Foods sells few national-brand products) remain a lot more expensive than the least expensive options available at the other area stores we surveyed.

On the quality side, Whole Foods’ customers continue to rate it highly on our surveys—about the same as before the buyout.

One reason Amazon bought Whole Foods was to obtain its grocery distribution network, and Amazon continues to expand its grocery delivery business. Click here for our report on grocery delivery services.

Whole Foods’ Amazon Prime discounts don’t yet add up to much.

Like most grocery stores, Whole Foods uses “loss leaders”—widely advertised discounts on a small number of items—to draw customers into stores (when calculating our price comparison scores, we use these sale prices). But there’s a new twist: Amazon Prime members who provide their phone numbers at checkout automatically receive further discounts (they can also scan coupons available on Amazon’s smartphone app). Prime members get an extra 10 percent off items already on sale at Whole Foods, plus special Prime-only discounts on a handful of other weekly special items.

While these perks sound great, we found that so far they aren’t worth much. Compared to most other grocery stores, Whole Foods runs very few sales (the store we checked the week we wrote this only had 23 items on sale) and offered only five Prime-only specials. Sometimes its Prime-only deals are designed to garner a lot of attention: For Valentine’s Day, it hyped that Prime members could buy two dozen roses for $19.99, instead of $24.99. But because Whole Foods and Amazon offer so few of these discounts, they won’t save most shoppers much money.

Amazon likely isn’t done making changes at Whole Foods. We’ll continue to check in.

PriceRite, Walmart, and WinCo win for price.

Our shoppers found these discounters consistently offered very low prices compared to the average prices at the stores we surveyed, often 15 to 20 percent below the all-store average in each area. For a family that spends $200 per week at the supermarket, a 10 percent price difference totals $1,000 per year; a 15 percent price difference totals $1,500 per year.

Other price standouts include FoodMaxx, FoodsCo, Fred Meyer, Fresh Thyme, Grocery Outlet, Market Basket, Sprouts, Target, and Woodman’s.

Most large, traditional supermarket chains get low marks from their customers—and don’t offer impressive prices, either.

In our surveys of consumers, most of the largest chains in the seven metro areas we studied were rated poorly for quality of products and service. Acme, Albertsons, Cub, FoodMaxx, Giant (Washington area), Jewel-Osco, Lucky, Safeway, Shaw's, Shoppers Food, and Stop & Shop were each rated "superior" overall by fewer than half of their surveyed customers.

Many of the price winners also earned very poor ratings from their customers

PriceRite, Target, and Walmart received dismal reviews from their surveyed customers.

A handful of smaller local and regional chains wow customers with high-quality products and service—without imposing a big price penalty.

In many of the seven metro areas we studied, there are one or two regional or local chains that are fan favorites for offering high-quality products and service at reasonable or low prices. For example:

• In the Boston, Philadalphia, and Washington, D.C., areas, Wegmans for several years has consistently earned very high ratings from its customers for quality. In each market, it ranks #1 for quality with our raters (more than 90 percent rated it “superior” overall) and charges prices that are lower than traditional chains like Acme, Giant, Safeway, Shaw's, ShopRite, and Stop & Shop. The Rochester, N.Y.-based chain continues to add stores along the eastern seaboard using its slow-but-steady growth strategy.
• Also in the Boston area, Market Basket offers very low prices—lower even than Walmart's—and received high overall ratings from its customers.
• In the Chicago area, shoppers love the quality of produce and meat at Mariano's, which charges lower prices than Jewel-Osco, Meijer, and several other big chains. And we found Woodman’s offers very low prices and received high overall ratings from its customers.
• In the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, Fresh Thyme Farmers market offers low prices and gets above-average ratings from its customers, and Hy-Vee earns very high ratings and offers prices that are lower than Cub’s.

But in some cities, you can’t have it all.

In the San Francisco and Seattle areas, we found that the stores that offer the lowest prices don’t receive the highest ratings from their surveyed customers.

We also compared prices of organic produce and meat, checked out warehouse clubs, looked at unique stores like Trader Joe’s and ALDI, and examined local grocery delivery options, plus share tips on saving no matter where you shop.

Our ratings of local chains and stores report how each stacks up for price and quality. To compare prices, our researchers used a 154-item market basket of common items—and a lot of energy—to shop area options. To evaluate stores on quality of products and service, we surveyed area consumers. The results are reported in our ratings tables and summarized below.

Whole Foods appears to have lowered its prices since the Amazon buyout, but it remains one of the area’s most expensive grocery chains.

When Amazon purchased Whole Foods last year many consumers were excited by the prospect of paying Amazon-like prices for Whole Foods-quality products. But we’re not quite there, yet.

Whole Foods built a loyal following by offering high-quality produce, meat, prepared foods, and off-brand staples, evidenced by the very high ratings it gets for the produce and meat quality questions in our surveys of grocery store customers. Whole Foods’ customers continue to rate it highly on our surveys for quality of fresh produce and meat—about the same as before the buyout.

Although Amazon successfully spins up a lot of media attention each time it announces a (usually minor) price cut at Whole Foods, the chain remains among the most expensive options among local chains and stores we shopped. But there has been some price movement: This time we found its overall prices were about 32 percent higher than Fred Meyer’s, 14 percent higher than Safeway’s, and roughly the same as or just a bit higher than at Ballard, Central, and Metropolitan.

Looking at just produce, Whole Foods’ prices were actually much lower than Ballard’s, Central’s, and Metropolitan’s, and were only three percent higher than QFC’s, which gets lower quality ratings than Whole Foods for that department.

One reason Amazon bought Whole Foods was to obtain its grocery distribution network, and Amazon continues to expand its grocery delivery business. Click here for our report on grocery delivery services.

Whole Foods’ Amazon Prime discounts don’t yet add up to much.

Like most grocery stores, Whole Foods uses “loss leaders”—widely advertised discounts on a small number of items—to draw customers into stores (when calculating our price comparison scores, we use these sale prices). But there’s a new twist: Amazon Prime members who provide their phone numbers at checkout automatically receive further discounts (they can also scan coupons available on Amazon’s smartphone app). Prime members get an extra 10 percent off items already on sale at Whole Foods, plus special Prime-only discounts on a handful of other weekly special items.

While these perks sound great, we found that so far they aren’t worth much. Compared to most other grocery stores, Whole Foods runs very few sales (the store we checked the week we wrote this only had 23 items on sale) and offered only five Prime-only specials. Sometimes its Prime-only deals are designed to garner a lot of attention: For Valentine’s Day, it hyped that Prime members could buy two dozen roses for $19.99, instead of $24.99. But because Whole Foods and Amazon offer so few of these discounts, they won’t save most shoppers much money.

Amazon likely isn’t done making changes at Whole Foods. We’ll continue to check in.

Grocery Outlet, Walmart, and WinCo were the price winners—where many families could save more than $2,000 per year.

WinCo’s prices were about 27 percent lower than the average prices we found at all surveyed stores. Grocery Outlet, which offers a somewhat odd assortment of steeply discounted surplus national-brand products, offered prices that were about 26 percent lower than the average. Walmart was the other big saver, with prices 20 percent lower than average.

For a family that spends $200 per week at the supermarket, a 20 to 27 percent price difference could total savings of $2,080 to more than $2,800 a year.

Shoppers using Grocery Outlet will have to shop at more than one place.

Although Grocery Outlet wins for price, it offers few options compared to other grocery stores: The location we shopped carried less than one-fourth of the items in our market basket.

Fred Meyer was the next-best bet for low grocery prices in the Puget Sound area.

Its prices were about 10 percent lower than average.

Three of the area’s largest chains—Albertsons, QFC, and Safeway—offered higher-than-average prices.

Albertsons’ and Safeway’s prices averaged four percent higher than the other chains and stores we surveyed, and QFC’s prices were about six percent higher than the all-store average.

Target stores charge high prices for produce.

Overall, prices at the Target store we shopped were about four percent lower than average. But its produce prices were nine percent higher than average. In general, we found that Target stores around the U.S. that lack scales at checkout and therefore price produce per piece or package, offer undersized items relative to their price tags. (At Target and other stores that price produce per piece we used our own scales to weigh items to convert costs to price per pound.)

On the quality side, Albertsons, Grocery Outlet, Safeway, Walmart, and WinCo rated low for “quality of fresh produce,” “quality of meats,” and “overall quality.” Walmart ranked last.

Among the largest grocery chains, QFC and Fred Meyer received the highest overall ratings on our surveys of local consumers and Albertsons and Safeway the lowest. On our “overall quality” question, QFC and Fred Meyer were each rated “superior” by 64 percent of their surveyed customers, compared to only 27 percent for Walmart, 43 percent for Safeway, 46 percent for Albertsons, 48 percent for Grocery Outlet, and 55 percent for WinCo.

The highest-rated outlets are all small operators.

Central Market, Metropolitan Market, and PCC Community Markets were all rated “superior” for produce quality and for overall quality by more than 80 percent of their surveyed customers.

Unfortunately, the stores that rate highest for quality charge high prices.

The three businesses rated highest overall each had prices that were at least 15 percent higher than the all-store average.

Within the largest chains, there is relatively little store-to-store price variation.

You can save by substituting store brands and generic products for national brands.

When we substituted cheaper generic and store brands for about one-sixth of the items in our price-shopping market basket at the big chains, the total cost of the full market basket dropped by about five percent.

We also compared prices of organic produce and meat, checked out warehouse clubs, looked at Trader Joe’s, and examine local grocery delivery options.

Check out the other articles in our “Grocery Stores” category and our ratings tables for info on all the local grocery options, how we rated them, and tips on saving no matter where you shop.