Thursday, 25 September 2025, 09:28
The amount we spend on a weekly shop can be – as the saying goes – ‘a pretty penny’. Hence the importance of choosing wisely where we fill our shopping basket (and more so the shopping cart). Once more, the annual warning comes from the OCU (the organisation of consumers and users in Spain). As is customary every September, this consumer rights organisation has once again published the results of its comparison of supermarket prices. According to this year’s price report, the store where you choose to take your shopping trolley can make a substantial difference to your household finances, with an average saving of 1,132 euros per year across Spain. In the Costa del Sol province this gap is even more pronounced, exceeding 1,700 euros in municipalities such as Malaga city (1,787 euros), Marbella (1,716.60 euros) and Fuengirola (1,777.18 euros). The difference is less marked in towns such as Torremolinos and Rincón de la Victoria, where it is around 1,055 euros below the national average.
As the OCU states, all the major supermarket chains have increased their prices for the basic food basket in 2025 and the main culprits are fresh foods, precisely those most recommended for a healthy diet. To reach this conclusion, the consumer body visited hundreds of establishments, allowing it to calculate the price levels for 183 large and medium-sized Spanish cities. Online supermarkets from the main chains are also included.
Food prices for such as coffee, chocolate, fresh fruit and eggs have soared the most this year
Of the individual products included in the so-called ‘OCU basket’, 146 have seen increases and 90 have decreased. Foods such as coffee, chocolate, fruit and eggs are the ones that have seen the most increases this year, which, on top of previous increases, has led to their prices doubling over the past four years. Meanwhile, the decreases are most pronounced in olive oil (down 53%), “but these declines fail to compensate for the prices they reached last year, so they are still 57% above what they cost in 2021”, explains the OCU.
Hipercor and Lidl, where prices have risen the most
The trend is widespread. The large national chains have raised their prices by an average of 3% (above the general CPI (consumer price index), which stood at 2.3%). However, not all the chains studied have responded equally when it comes to implementing the price increases. “There is considerable disparity in how this has played out, as Hipercor has increased its prices by 7% and Lidl by 6.8%, while Alcampo has raised them by only 0.5%. A large group of retail brands have increased prices by between 3% and 4%”, warns the OCU.
In 42 of the 183 locations where prices were reviewed, the cheapest store for filling the ‘OCU basket’ was an Alcampo hypermarket and, in eight locations, the MiAlcampo chain also took the top spot. Along with these, the consumer organisation highlights the Dani supermarket chain, “an excellent choice if you have one of its stores nearby”. In Malaga province, for example, they have stores in Antequera and Fuengirola. The OCU also recommends Consum, in second place, followed by Lidl, Supeco and Aldi. Mercadona – according to the OCU report – is only the cheapest option in 14 of the locations included in the study.
The main culprit for these increases is the fresh food going into that OCU basket (fruit, vegetables, meat, fish), which registered an average increase of 8%, much higher than that of packaged products, be they store-brand labels (up 1.5%) or leading brands (up 0.3%).