Over the last five years, American grocery costs have soared. <\/p>\n
In 2022, prices for food prepared at home jumped by a historic 11.8% from the year before, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics\u2019 Consumer Price Index survey. While prices didn\u2019t drop in 2025, the rate of inflation for groceries has for the most part slowed. In July, costs for groceries were 2.2% higher than the year before.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit Consumers\u2019 Checkbook\u2019s latest evaluations of Delaware Valley grocery stores found most shoppers can save by choosing low-cost stores. Checkbook researchers shopped stores using a 150-item list to compare prices. <\/p>\n
To evaluate stores on quality of products and service, we surveyed our members. Here\u2019s what we found.<\/p>\n
Wegmans is still a winner<\/p>\n
Wegmans now has 11 stores in the Delaware Valley area. Since opening its first area location in 2003, the Rochester, N.Y.-based chain has consistently earned high ratings from its customers for quality. In our latest survey, 85% of its customers judged it \u201csuperior\u201d on each of our survey questions on produce, meat, and overall quality.<\/p>\n
Although Wegmans\u2019 prices aren\u2019t among the lowest in the region, it remains competitive. Its prices were about 2% lower than average prices at Giant and ShopRite, 4% lower than Redner\u2019s, about 12% lower than Acme and McCaffrey\u2019s, and 25% lower than Whole Foods.<\/p>\n
McCaffrey\u2019s gets raves but isn\u2019t low-cost<\/p>\n
The locally owned small chain ranked among the area\u2019s best grocery options for quality, with 87% of its surveyed customers judging it \u201csuperior\u201d overall, 90% rating it \u201csuperior\u201d for produce, and 88% rating it tops for meat. <\/p>\n
But McCaffrey\u2019s prices were about 12% higher than the all-store average.<\/p>\n
Aldi and Lidl offer the biggest savings<\/p>\n
Germany-based discounters Aldi and Lidl continue to expand their U.S. footprints. These chains focus on low costs, and our survey found them quite inexpensive: For our shopping list, Aldi\u2019s prices were 35% lower than the all-store average, and Lidl\u2019s were 26% lower. Aldi\u2019s per-unit prices were even lower than wholesale clubs BJ\u2019s, Costco, and Sam\u2019s Club.<\/p>\n
These savings are partly explained by Aldi\u2019s and Lidl\u2019s smaller-format stores, which have much lower overhead costs than conventional supermarkets. Shoppers at quirky Aldi and Lidl don\u2019t expect wide choices of brands or sizes. Instead, they\u2019re offered comparable house-brand products in exchange for big savings. <\/p>\n
Other price standouts: Amazon Fresh, Food Lion, Grocery Outlet, and Walmart<\/p>\n
Amazon Fresh\u2019s prices were about 16% lower than the all-store average, Walmart\u2019s were 10% lower, and Food Lion\u2019s 7% lower. <\/p>\n
Grocery Outlet, which offers a somewhat odd assortment of steeply discounted surplus national-brand products, offered prices that were about 12% lower than average.<\/p>\n
Amazon Fresh opened its first Delaware Valley area location in 2022, and the region now has five. These small-format stores focus on low costs and convenience. The company\u2019s app keeps track of what you remove from shelves; when finished, you simply exit without scanning items.<\/p>\n
For a family that spends $300 per week at the supermarket, a 16% price difference totals savings of $2,496 per year; a 10% price difference totals $1,560 a year.<\/p>\n
Trader Joe\u2019s remains popular<\/p>\n
Among survey respondents, 83% rated the funky-and-fun chain \u201csuperior\u201d for \u201coverall quality.\u201d <\/p>\n
Although not a price leader in the area, TJ\u2019s prices were about 3% lower than the all-store average and about 14% lower than Acme.<\/p>\n
Whole Foods remains an expensive choice<\/p>\n
Whole Foods built a loyal following by offering high-quality produce, meat, prepared foods, and generic staples. It continues to receive high marks in our consumer surveys, especially for produce and meat quality. <\/p>\n
But our price survey found that Whole Foods remains among the most expensive stores we shopped: Its overall prices were about 32% higher than the average prices at all stores we surveyed, or about 33% higher than top-rated Wegmans, 18% higher than McCaffrey\u2019s, and 57% higher than Amazon Fresh, its corporate sibling.<\/p>\n
Most other large chains receive dreadful ratings from their customers for quality<\/p>\n
When it came to quality, Target scored lowest; Acme, Food Lion, the Fresh Grocer, Walmart, and Weis also received abysmal scores.<\/p>\n
Target was rated \u201csuperior\u201d overall by only 18% of its surveyed customers; the other chains mentioned above were each rated \u201csuperior\u201d overall by fewer than 40%.<\/p>\n
Although Redner\u2019s and ShopRite did not receive stellar ratings for quality, they did get considerably higher scores than many other conventional supermarkets. Among Redner\u2019s customers, 54% rated the store \u201csuperior\u201d overall; ShopRite\u2019s score was 52%.<\/p>\n
Within the largest chains, there is relatively little store-to-store price variation<\/p>\n
Prices at the Acme, Giant, and ShopRite locations we surveyed were about the same from store to store.<\/p>\n
MOM\u2019s Organic Market received raves<\/p>\n
MOM\u2019s, which sells only organic products, was the highest scoring chain for produce quality and overall quality.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve found that its prices are competitive with other local stores when we look only at organics.<\/p>\n
Warehouse clubs will save you money \u2014 if you shop there often<\/p>\n
The three warehouse chains all offer most shoppers significant savings. Sam\u2019s Club, for example, beat Acme\u2019s prices by 35%. And compared to Acme, the savings were about 33% at Costco and 32% at BJ\u2019s.<\/p>\n
In addition to having low prices, Costco received high customer ratings for meat quality and overall quality. (BJ\u2019s and Sam\u2019s Club\u2019s ratings were considerably lower than Costco\u2019s.)<\/p>\n
While the warehouse clubs offered significant savings compared to prices offered at grocery stores, that might not justify paying their annual membership fees if you don\u2019t visit often. <\/p>\n
For example, BJ\u2019s prices were only about 14% lower than Walmart\u2019s; you\u2019d have to spend $429 at BJ\u2019s on products you could buy at Walmart before breaking even on BJ\u2019s $60 annual fee.<\/p>\n
Delaware Valley Consumers\u2019 Checkbook magazine and Checkbook.org is a nonprofit organization with a mission to help consumers get the best service and lowest prices. It is supported by consumers and takes no money from the service providers it evaluates. Until Feb. 5, Inquirer readers can access Checkbook\u2019s ratings of local grocery stores and delivery services free at Checkbook.org\/Inquirer\/Groceries<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the last five years, American grocery costs have soared. In 2022, prices for food prepared at home…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":487442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,220078,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-487441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-grocery-shopping-tips-deals-prices","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115826397260325357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}