Study: Where to buy the cheapest food for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving does not have to be expensive, as a new price comparison study reveals where to buy the cheapest groceries by shopping in the store's own range. Chicken is cheapest at Walmart; ground beef – at Aldi; plain milk – at Costco; whipped cream – at Kroger; and parmesan – at Target. These are some of the lowest prices for own-brand products across five major supermarket chains in the US.

In a new study from Coupons4real.com, the researchers analyzed prices for 225,317 items across 253 subcategories of meat and seafood, dairy and eggs, beverages, bakery, and frozen and produce in 173 supermarkets within 49 major US cities. They created a list of 118 own-brand products and compared their prices across Aldi, Costco, Kroger, Target, and Walmart. The study produced three types of cost-analysis rankings: cost by chain, cost by store brand, and cost by product.

Cheapest grocery chain

Walmart is the cheapest supermarket chain for own-brand products of all analyzed stores. Walmart’s own-label groceries are, on average, in the bottom 20% cheapest compared to Aldi, Costco, Target and Kroger. For example, Walmart’s own mozzarella costs ¢23 per ounce, compared to a median ¢38/oz elsewhere across own-branded ranges. Store-label chicken is ¢17/oz. versus an average ¢28/oz. nationwide. Walmart-branded flatbread is ¢18 per ounce compared to a ¢31/oz median price tag. All three aforementioned products are cheapest at Walmart among all the studied chains and stores.

Aldi is the second cheapest chain for own-branded groceries. Its prices are among the lowest 35% of all store-labeled items. Aldi ranked first for offering the most affordable own-branded cheddar (¢21/oz. versus a median ¢43/oz.), mixed vegetables (¢14/oz. versus a median ¢20/oz.), burger and ground beef (¢25/oz. versus a median ¢40/oz.), fruit mixes (¢11/oz versus a median ¢22/oz.), lactose-free milk (¢5/fl. oz. versus a median ¢6/fl. oz.), plant-based milk (¢4/oz. versus a median ¢5/oz.), frozen seafood (¢23/oz. versus a median ¢54/oz.), coffee creamers (¢9/oz. versus a median ¢10/oz.), sour cream (¢12/oz. versus a median ¢15/oz.), and cottage cheese (¢10/oz. versus a median ¢14/oz.).

Costco is about 5% more expensive than Aldi. Its own-branded products are still in the bottom 40% cheapest of all stores evaluated in this study. There are seven Costco items than are cheapest here than its other four competitors: plain milk (¢2/fl. oz. versus a median ¢4/oz.), shrimp/prawn (¢25/oz. versus a median ¢71/oz.), mixed berries (¢22/oz. versus a median ¢30/oz.), sausages (¢21/oz. versus a median 31/oz.), whole bean coffee (¢35/oz. versus a median ¢67/oz.), products labelled as “more frozen snacks” (¢23/oz. versus a median ¢47/oz.), and hot dogs (¢28/oz. versus a median ¢39/oz.).

Cheapest supermarket chain for own-brand products

#	Chain	How expensive are own-brand products, compared to competitors, on a 0-100 scale, where 100 is the most expensive
1	Walmart	$19.70
2	Aldi	$34.58
3	Costco	$39.26
4	Target	$58.39
5	Kroger	$69.86

Cheapest store brands

Aldi’s Happy Farms is the cheapest own-brand line among a total of 24 evaluated labels. On a price scale of 0% to 100%, Happy Farms items only cost a record-low 2.54% compared to other own-label brands. The next cheapest own label – Season’s Choice – also belongs to Aldi, with price tags in the lowest 7%.

Walmart disrupts Aldi’s otherwise six-label streak with their Great Value label, ranked third cheapest own-brand range. Items with this label cost only a tenth of the price of what own-branded groceries tend to cost, on average, across the evaluated stores.

Interestingly, Target’s Good & Gather Organic is the most expensive grocery line of all 24 analyzed supermarket brands. This is despite Kroger having the most expensive store-branded products, whose Simple Truth and Private Selection ranges ranked second and third most expensive.

Cheapest own-brand products

The top ten items with the widest variety of store-labelled groceries are: plain milk (1,727 options), cheese blends (1,019), cheddar (924), mixed vegetables (912), burgers and ground beef (765), mozzarella (721), shrimp / prawn (695), fruit mixes (679), chicken (667) and lactose-free milk (643).

To get the cheapest plain milk, families should shop at Aldi, where they would pay half the median price compared to other own-label brands.

Cheese blends are cheapest to buy at Walmart, where prices are $0.24 per ounce, compared to a median $0.38/oz.

Aldi’s cheapest, most popular own-brand item is cheddar cheese. It is half the price ($0.21/oz) of other stores included in the study ($0.43/oz).

“Our study offers thrifty families and individuals a very practical way to cut their grocery costs by splitting their shopping lists across various stores,” said a spokesperson for Coupons4real. “Of course, prices and deals vary widely but knowing which store-own labels are generally the cheapest can significantly cut a family’s monthly grocery budget.

“That being said, the American supermarket landscape is very fragmented and regional, so the five chains we chose have varying degrees of own-brand product availability through Instacart, which was a one-stop shop for all the supermarkets we selected.

“We encourage families to test out stores’ own-branded ranges ahead of Thanksgiving and the festive season. It is possible to cut the dinner costs to a mere fraction compared to previous years by switching to certain own-label items and finding the right balance between quality, cost, and geographic availability.”

Methodology:

1. The researchers collected grocery price data from InstaCart for five popular grocery chains – Aldi, Costco, Kroger, Target, and Walmart – in the 49 most populated cities in the US.
2. The prices are true as at August 21^st, 2024.
3. Not all grocery stores were available in all the cities included in the study. This resulted in analyzing prices from a total of 173 stores.
4. The food categories included in the study are meat and seafood, dairy and eggs, beverages, bakery, and frozen and produce, with a further 253 subcategories. This amounted to 225,317 individual item prices, across all stores, brands and product categories.
5. The researchers used the following criteria to filter the remaining data: store own-brand, available unit-prices, the product category is found in at least five shops and five cities, only products with at least four brands available, and brands with at least six product types.
6. The remaining data was categorized by product type. A total of 118 product types were studied across 24 grocery store own-branded items.
7. Brands and chains were compared by studying price-per-unit values (either per oz or fl oz), at the 25th percentile level. Because many brands have multiple items of the same product, the median & 25th percentile values were found among own-branded ranges. The 25th percentile values were used throughout the analysis because they represent the cheaper products available in the range without being skewed by outliers.
8. These values were scaled from zero to ten within each product type, and then an overall index score was calculated for each brand and chain using weightings determined by the completeness of the data.
9. The study produced three types of cost-analysis rankings: cost by chain, cost by store brand, and cost by product. The first two rankings order the chains and brands by how cheap/expensive their products are, while the third ranking lists all 118 items and the top three stores selling the cheapest own-brand alternatives, indicating their costs compared to median prices among all own-branded products.