That’s a lot of turmoil. But the latest evaluation of quality and price at local grocery stores by the nonprofit Washington Consumers’ Checkbook found that one thing hasn’t changed: Many area outfits still struggle to provide high-quality products at low prices.
Checkbook regularly evaluates local grocery options based on prices and service. To compare costs, its researchers use a 154-item “market basket” of common items to gather prices from a sample of local stores. Checkbook also surveys its members to evaluate the quality of stores’ products and service.
Here’s a summary of results from the most recent report on stores in the D.C. area.
There are more choices than ever. There are now so many options for grocery shopping — including warehouse clubs; alt-grocers Aldi, Lidl and Trader Joe’s; and smaller chains that focus on quality — that consumers often make several stops to get everything they need.
Even with all of those choices, Wegmans remains a favorite. The Rochester, N.Y.-based chain now operates more than 10 stores in the Washington area. Since opening its first D.C.-area store in 2004, Wegmans has consistently earned exceptionally high ratings for quality in Checkbook’s surveys of customers. Ninety percent rate it “superior” overall; 88 percent say its produce is “superior.”
Prices and quality vary widely. The area’s price standouts in Checkbook’s latest survey were Food Lion and Walmart. Walmart’s prices were the best (16 percent lower than the average of all the stores Checkbook surveyed). Food Lion (12 percent lower than the average) was the runner-up for price. For example, a family’s $250 weekly grocery budget would go $40 further at a store with prices 16 percent lower than the average and $30 further at one with prices 12 percent lower.
Some Target locations also offered low prices. At the Target that Checkbook shopped at in the District, prices were about the same as the all-store average, but those at the Manassas, Va., store were about 10 percent lower than average.
Giant, Harris Teeter and Wegmans offered similar prices; Safeway’s remain the highest of the area’s conventional supermarket chains. Safeway’s prices averaged about 32 percent higher than Walmart’s, 26 percent higher than Food Lion’s, 17 percent higher than Target’s, and 7 percent higher than Giant’s, Harris Teeter’s and Wegmans’.
Whole Foods remains an expensive choice — and its ratings for quality continue to dip. When Amazon purchased it in 2017, many consumers were excited by the prospect of paying Amazon-like prices for Whole Foods-quality products, but that hasn’t happened. Although Whole Foods’ customers rated it fairly highly in “overall quality” (66 percent of its surveyed customers rated it “superior”), that’s considerably lower than five years ago.
And it’s the most expensive choice among local chains and stores shopped, with overall prices about 23 percent higher than the average, or about 19 percent higher than those at top-rated Wegmans.
Surveyed customers gave Giant, Safeway, Target, Walmart and Weis Markets low marks for overall quality. Target was rated “superior” overall by only 29 percent, Safeway and Walmart each by only 31 percent, Weis by 34 percent and Giant by 42 percent.
Harris Teeter, on the other hand, received “superior” ratings for overall quality from 63 percent of its surveyed customers. It also received higher scores than Giant and Safeway for quality of fresh produce, quality of meats, staff helpfulness/pleasantness and all other questions.
Aldi, Lidl and Trader Joe’s offer attractive alternatives. German-based discounters Aldi and Lidl, ubiquitous in most of western Europe, continue to expand their footprints in the United States. Like Trader Joe’s, these alt-grocers mostly carry their own brands rather than national-brand products.
Aldi and Lidl focus on low costs, and Checkbook found their prices to be cheaper than Walmart and warehouse clubs. Trader Joe’s also offers lower prices than most supermarket chains, while earning mostly high accolades from its customers.
Aldi’s prices were 44 percent lower than the all-store average for Checkbook’s full-market basket; Lidl’s were 36 percent lower. But these savings come with a downside: Aldi was rated relatively poorly on many aspects of quality; Lidl’s ratings were better, but not stellar. Even Aldi’s low score for overall quality, though, was better than those for Safeway, Target and Walmart.
Unfortunately, many customers of these chains might have to make a second stop elsewhere to buy everything they need: Trader Joe’s carried only 42 percent of the items in Checkbook’s market basket, Aldi carried 55 percent, and Lidl stocked 67 percent.
Warehouse clubs, not surprisingly, offer big savings. When comparing per-unit prices for items in Checkbook’s market basket, the area’s three warehouse clubs — Costco, Sam’s Club and BJ’s — all offer significant savings for most shoppers. Costco, for example, beat Safeway’s prices by a whopping 39 percent; Sam’s Club and BJ’s offered a savings of about 35 percent over Safeway.
Costco also received very high ratings for its meat quality, and above-average scores for produce quality and overall quality. (Ratings for BJ’s and Sam’s Club were considerably lower than those for Costco.)
Although the warehouse clubs offered significant savings, that might not be enough to justify paying the clubs’ annual membership fees if you don’t use them often. And if half of what you buy is wasted because of spoilage, you won’t save by buying in bulk.
Kevin Brasler is executive editor of Washington Consumers’ Checkbook magazine and the nonprofit organization Checkbook.org. You can access Checkbook’s ratings of Washington-area grocery stores and delivery options free until March 25 at Checkbook.org/WashingtonPost/Groceries.
