The market basket, April 2007

Over the last year, I've done what I've made a semi-annual pilgrimage to the local grocery stores to compare prices as I do my regular shopping. Last April and last November I posted the results.

So last Sunday (the 29th) I did this again and what I found were some interesting trends. Wal-Mart remains the overall leader, but its lead has shrunk by quite a bit. While their prices increased 5.6% over the one-year period, its competitors have apparently adopted a more aggressive pricing and sale pattern to close the gap. Super Fresh in particular racked up a huge difference and jumped from the most expensive store in both my previous surveys to number 2 behind Wal-Mart. Food Lion fell to third and now Giant brings up the rear - however, the total difference has dropped to a factor of about 20%.

Just looking at it from a perspective of a normal shopper, Wal-Mart has earned a reputation of coming into a market with a very low price point in order to draw business, then slowly increasing the prices over time and lessening their advantage over the competition (making a better return in the process.) And that appears to be the case here.

Another factor in the spread is the changes within the chains and stores themselves. The Fruitland Wal-Mart (which is where I generally shop) is beginning the process of remodeling the store, so that may affect their bottom line the next time and make the gap even smaller. Meanwhile, Food Lion remodeled their Route 50 store (my store) last year and Giant closed the North Pointe store, which should've helped their local bottom line by closing that unprofitable location. Only Super Fresh has left their local store essentially unchanged over the last year and that may have helped matters, along with a better pricing strategy from parent company A & P.

If you'd like the see the list for yourself, a .pdf file can be found here. The April 2006 list is here and the list from last November here.