The Most and Least Expensive Grocery Stores in America

Everyone’s feeling the pinch when it comes to their groceries. Daily essentials and pantry staples like coffee and flour seem to get more expensive by the day, and items that once felt like bargain buys are now the kind of thing you have to think twice about putting in your basket. It’s a tough time, and we all know it. And a lot of the time, we don’t even realize that we’re spending significantly more until our bank account is suddenly feeling much lighter. We just go to our regular store, day in and day out,

Videos by Sporked

That’s why analyses like the recent one from Consumer Reports are so useful for cost-conscious shoppers. CR’s recently published price comparison (which used data from late summer 2025) examined the average cost of a basketful of common items from 35 major supermarkets in six major metro areas across the US, to establish which grocery stores will help you save, and which will drain your wallet. Here are the results.

If You’re Shopping at Costco, You’re Doing it Right

The Consumer Reports study, which used prices at Walmart as a baseline for its comparisons, found that Costco was by far the cheapest place to buy groceries across all metro areas. In some places, like Boston, a basket of groceries from Costco was 37% cheaper than the same haul from Walmart. Nationally, it averaged at 21.4% cheaper.

BJ’s Wholesale Club came in as the second cheapest, with a 21% saving on groceries compared to Walmart (although data was only collected from its Boston location). Lidl and Aldi were next, at 8.5% and 8.3% cheaper, respectively, while WinCo and H-E-B were both marginally cheaper than Walmart. We guess you can beat the price on Great Value items.

Whole Foods, We Need Answers

On the other end of the scale, things got a lot pricier. The most expensive supermarket across most metro areas examined, as well as nationally, was Whole Foods. Overall, groceries from the supermarket cost 39.7% more than comparable items at Walmart; in some places, like Virginia Beach, they were closer to 60% more expensive.

Shaw’s, El Rancho, Albertsons, Harris Teeter, and Trader Joe’s were all also significantly pricier than Walmart, and it was also notable how much prices could vary from place to place in these stores. In some metro areas, for example, Trader Joe’s was around 15% more expensive; in others, it was 33% pricier.

What’s also interesting is that grocery stores that consumers might consider low-price or budget-friendly were, at times, more expensive than the Walmart benchmark. Food 4 Less is a good example of this: It’s a supermarket that’s commonly cited as being affordable, but overall, groceries were 9% more expensive when purchased from there.

Naturally, it’s also worth considering that while Costco and BJ’s ranked as the cheapest, they also work with a bulk-buy model, and you have to pay a membership fee to join ‘em. So, swings and roundabouts, huh?