New research has found the one Australian supermarket making healthy eating the most affordable, amid inflation and cost-of-living increases.
Consumer advocacy group Choice compared the prices of all four major supermarkets and found one ranked top when it came to the cost of a healthy basket.
Aldi beat out Coles, Woolworths and IGA as the most affordable option for customers looking for a health grocery shop.
Choice included healthy items of baby spinach, broccoli, carrots, chicken breast, corn thins, Greek-style yoghurt, tinned chickpeas and rolled oats in the example basket, using all own-brand items other than the corn thins, which were the same name-brand at all stores.
Aldi’s healthy basket came to a total of $28.79, while Woolworths cost $33.52, Coles cost $34.25 and IGA cost a whopping $42.27.
IGA’s basket however was forced to include more name brand items, as a consequence of the store’s lack of home-brand range.
Throughout all the testing Choice did on different baskets of items, the order of affordability remained for the supermarkets.
While concerns often weigh heavy on the correlation between affordability and freshness, Choice found Aldi provided mystery shoppers with the freshest bagged spinach.
Aldi’s spinach performed best, with all leaves remaining fresh after two days in 70 per cent of samples, followed by 62 per cent for Coles and 50 per cent of the IGA samples.
Choice also tested a larger basket with 17 items, including eight fresh and nine packaged items, with Aldi’s total coming to $68.89.
Woolworths came in with $74.47 while Coles cost $76.79 and IGA cost $92.69.
In another comparative basket of eight base products, prices across the board were up from Choice’s previous quarterly testing in March.
IGA had the biggest quarterly price increase of $5, while Aldi came in second with an increase of $2.96 since last quarter.
Coles had an increase of $2.44 while Woolworths increased by only 87c.
The analysis cited military action in the Middle East as a potential cause of increased prices, with a spike in fuel costs having a knock-on effect, but reasoned that it could also be down to seasonal variations.
Queensland stores came in as the cheapest in the comparisons, with lower-priced strawberries and broccoli a driving cause.
Concerns for affordability of food across Australia have been on the rise, with rising inflation and high cost-of-living.
Previous research covered by News24 found that the average weekly grocery shop for a family of four is now $245, while five years ago it was $187.
A previous survey from the Australian Council of Social Services also found that 46 percent of income support recipients are skipping meals in a bid to save money.
Read related topics:Cost of LivingHealth and Beauty
