Our price comparisons and ratings of stores for quality show the results of our market-basket price survey and our most recent surveys of consumers on supermarket quality and service. Here are some key findings— 

WinCo, FoodMaxx, and Target were the price standouts—able to save many families more than $1,500 per year. 

WinCo had prices that averaged 26 percent lower than those found at surveyed stores belonging to Lucky and Safeway, the area’s largest chains. FoodMaxx and Target also had substantially lower prices than Lucky and Safeway—each about 20 percent lower than the average prices found at the two big chains. For a family that spends $150 per week at the supermarket, a 20- to 26-percent price difference might be expected to total $1,500 to $2,000 during the course of a year. 

Target’s recent reconfiguration of many area stores to include groceries means more Bay Area shoppers finally have a low-cost supermarket option nearby. 

Price leader WinCo’s stores will not be conveniently located for most Bay Area shoppers: at the time of this writing, it was operating only three area stores in Brentwood, Pittsburg, and Vacaville. But with Target’s recent reconfiguration of about 30 area stores to include a basic selection of groceries and FoodMaxx’s 20 stores located in the East Bay, North Bay, and South Bay, for the first time in many years most area consumers will have at least one low-priced supermarket located near their workplace or home. 

On average, Lucky’s prices were slightly—only about two percent—lower than Safeway’s. 

Within the Lucky and Safeway chains, we found relatively little price variation from store to store. 

The Bay Area’s largest chains do not get high ratings for quality. 

On the quality side, in a limited survey of CHECKBOOK’s online subscribers, Lucky and Safeway rated at the bottom of the list for “quality of fresh produce,” “quality of meats,” and “overall quality.” Unfortunately, we received too few ratings in our latest survey for WinCo, FoodMaxx, or Target to report scores for these price leaders, but scores from our previous surveys of customers of these chains were about the same as, or slightly better than, scores of their much more expensive Lucky and Safeway rivals. 

The area’s chains that received the highest ratings from their customers for “quality of fresh produce,” “quality of meats,” and “overall quality”—stores like Andronico’s, Draeger’s, and Lunardi’s—unfortunately had prices that were substantially higher than those found at Lucky and Safeway. 

Prices at the surveyed Raley’s and Nob Hill stores were about two to four percent higher than those at surveyed Lucky and Safeway stores, but Raley’s and Nob Hill scored much better than the two largest chains on our survey of customers. 

Trader Joe’s received higher overall ratings than Lucky and Safeway, and doesn’t charge higher prices. 

Since the market basket we used for our price survey is largely made up of national-brand products, and because Trader Joe’s offers only its own brands, we couldn’t include it in our standard price comparisons that are based on our standard market basket of items. Instead, we had to shop Trader Joe’s using a special survey. In this survey, we included the same fresh produce, meats, and dairy items as we use in our standard survey. For the national-brand items on our list, we first compared the prices of Trader Joe’s store brands to the prices charged by the conventional supermarkets for the comparable national-brand items in our market basket. Then, for a second comparison, we compared Trader Joe’s prices to those charged by the supermarkets for the least expensive comparable item of any brand (including generic brands) they carried. (When comparing prices, we used per-unit pricing—for example, price per ounce.) 

The table below shows the results of these comparisons. 

• In our comparison of Trader Joe’s prices versus the prices of comparable, national-brand items, we found that Trader Joe’s prices were about 10 percent lower than the average of the prices found at Lucky and Safeway. 
• When we compared Trader Joe’s prices to the Lucky/Safeway average, assuming a shopper would buy at Lucky or Safeway the cheapest brand (or generic brand) comparable to each item in our market basket, Trader Joe’s price advantage all but disappeared. (But keep in mind that this second comparison doesn’t take into account product quality, and Trader Joe’s received higher overall ratings from its customers than Lucky or Safeway.) 
• For produce, Trader Joe’s prices for the items it carried were about 19 percent lower than the Lucky/Safeway average. 
• For meat, Trader Joe’s prices were about 11 percent higher than the Lucky/Safeway average. 
• Shopping at Trader Joe’s won’t save you money compared to the savings you’d get by shopping at a low-cost chain. For example, we found that, when comparing Trader Joe’s prices to those at FoodMaxx for comparable, national-brand items, Trader Joe’s prices were about 13 percent higher. 

Unfortunately, many Target and Trader Joe’s shoppers will have to supplement their trips to those stores with visits to conventional supermarkets. 

The Target store we surveyed had only 57 percent of the items in our market basket in stock when we shopped it, and the Trader Joe’s store we shopped carried only 36 percent of the items. 

Some chains—in particular, Berkeley Bowl and Lunardi’s—that rated high for fresh produce quality and that had relatively high prices for our entire market basket had relatively low fresh produce prices. 

Berkeley Bowl’s prices were, overall, about 11 percent higher than the Lucky/Safeway average, but for fresh produce alone its prices were nearly half the Lucky/Safeway average. And according to Berkeley Bowl’s surveyed customers, these savings are matched with quality products, as its scores for “quality of fresh produce” were among the highest. Lunardi’s similarly had relatively low prices for fresh produce (23 percent lower than the Lucky/Safeway average) and received high ratings in that category. So, if fresh produce makes up an unusually high portion of your supermarket purchases and a store in one of these small chains is convenient for you, it might be an interesting option for both quality and price. 

The highest prices among stores we surveyed were found at Whole Foods Market. 

Whole Foods’ prices were 33 percent higher than the average of prices at Lucky and Safeway—for the limited number of comparable items we could find at each chain. On the other hand, Whole Foods consistently gets very high scores from its customers on our surveys on quality of fresh produce and meat, and many of the items we could compare between Whole Foods and the other chains were fresh produce and meat items. (See our article on Buying Organic Food for more discussion of costs of organic food.) 

When shopping stores that offer store brand or generic products, you save by substituting these products for national brands. 

When we allowed the substitution of cheaper generic and store brands for about one-sixth of the items in our price-shopping market basket, the total cost for our market basket dropped by about six to eight percent at the surveyed Lucky and Safeway stores. 

For the items that could be compared, based on unit prices (price per pound, for example), the warehouse stores we surveyed offered dramatic savings. 

The surveyed Sam’s Club store, for example, beat the Safeway store we compared it to by a whopping 39 percent. Compared to that Safeway, the savings were about 36 percent at the Costco store we surveyed and about 23 percent for Smart & Final (which does not charge a membership fee). 

Since you can’t typically get everything you need at a warehouse store, we looked at the savings you might gain by shopping at both a warehouse store and at a supermarket, assuming you would purchase the lowest cost size available at either place. We found, for example, that by including Costco on your shopping schedule along with a Safeway store, you might save about 14 percent compared with shopping at the Safeway store alone. 

For more information on how warehouse stores compared on price, go to our section Buying in Bulk: Shopping at Warehouse Stores. 

In addition to having low prices, Costco got high ratings from surveyed customers for the quality of its fresh meats. 

The lack of price competition in the Bay Area comes along with some very good news on the number of supermarket options that rate high for quality and service. 

One way to size up quality and service in the Bay Area compared to the rest of the country is to look at Whole Foods Market, which has stores in all seven of the metropolitan areas where CHECKBOOK is published. In our surveys of consumers, when we have asked about fresh produce quality, only one area (Seattle) had as many as two chains that rated as high as Whole Foods. As you can see from our ratings of stores for quality, in the Bay Area, three supermarket operators were rated as high as, or higher than, Whole Foods for produce quality at the time of our last full, published report: Draeger’s, Lunardi’s, and Berkeley Bowl.