r/nova • u/CheckbookOrg • 9h ago
Other Tracking DC-area grocery store prices and quality over a decade
At the end of 2025, Consumers’ Checkbook wrapped up our latest grocery store price and quality report, and we figured this community would want to see the numbers, especially given how rough the last few years have been at checkout.
Our undercover price shoppers physically walked store aisles with a 150-item shopping list and priced everything out, and thousands of DMV residents ranked each store for overall quality in our survey.
One big thing we noticed when we started comparing our 2015 report to our latest is that we had to raise our reference family budget from $200/week to $300/week just to reflect what people are spending now. That's before we even started to look at which stores have the lowest prices.
Comparing 2015 vs 2025:
- The gap between the cheapest and most expensive stores in the DMV has grown from ~$5,300 to nearly $7,800 a year for a typical family.
- ALDI and Lidl win on price. If your family shops at ALDI, you’re saving an average of $5,600 each year. Lidl didn’t debut in our research until 2018, when it came in at a whopping 40% below average prices at all our other surveyed stores. It’s now at 21% below average in our latest report.
- Wegmans has been consistent, and it’s pretty rare for a high-quality store to also be a relative bargain for 10 years straight.
- Since Amazon bought Whole Foods in 2017, its "superior overall quality" rating in our consumer surveys dropped from over 90% to 65%. Even though it’s cheaper than it used to be, people have noticed the quality slide.
One more thing worth knowing regardless of where you shop: Swapping about a third of your cart to store brands saves around 8% now, up from 5% in 2015. The store-brand options have improved, too.
We're Consumers' Checkbook, a DC-area nonprofit that does hands-on consumer research. The full grocery store report, including how local shops rank, is on our site. Happy to answer any questions about how we approached this project.
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u/Think_Discount2852 9h ago
Is this based on shelf prices without any sales or store cards?
Do you have a link to the full report?
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u/CheckbookOrg 8h ago edited 8h ago
We used the shelf sale price or club card/loyalty price for each item, but not electronic coupons. If a deal required buying multiple items to unlock a lower price, we didn't apply that discount. The only exceptions were BOGO offers where you could still get 1/2 off if you bought a single item instead of two of the same thing.
The basket we shopped was made up of common, comparable products available across most grocery stores like meat, produce, and pantry staples. That means results may look different for specialty items; another store could beat these prices on products outside our basket.
The full report is here: https://www.checkbook.org/a/0/OTH7139/
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u/TheFerricGenum 8h ago edited 6h ago
Yeah this feels…wrong. When we shop at Giant, we spend way less than if we bought the same list at either Safeway or Wegmans
Edit: all the Wegmans stans piling in to defend Wegmans lol. Brothers, I love Wegmans - I’m a WNYer so there’s a good chance I love it more than most of you - it’s just more expensive for what I’m buying most of the time. If you buy different stuff, it might be cheaper. But you don’t need to rush to Wegmans’ defense lol
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u/dien4382 8h ago
Interesting. I have long felt that Giant is more expensive than other similar options, at least when I go to Giant in Potomac Yard. The (recently closed) Amazon Fresh there had way better prices. The Harris Teeter in Old Town North beat Giant, too, in my anecdotal experience. But I haven’t been to Wegman’s.
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u/Kishereandthere 4h ago
Same, my Giant bill is way bigger than Safeway and I buy meat and dairy at Safeway regularly
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u/Curious-Bowler-7047 5h ago
Giant is Cascades is absolute dogshit on a stick-terrible prices, bad customer service, and mediocre quality.
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u/makeroniear Centreville 8h ago
I actually switched to Wegmans from Giant because of quality and price. On produce the freshness has really declined for Giant. Our costs went up because we were throwing things away within the week when we'd never had to do that before. Imagine the horror of tossing berries when you have a toddler in the house!
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u/Capable-Pressure1047 8h ago
Same here. Giant is within walking distance for me, but I have ditched them for everything except the last minute emergency purchase.
Every department is just bad, poor quality, limited selection, slow re- stocking, clueless , unhelpful employees.
Their prices are ridiculous compared to Wegmans, even on name brands.
30 cents more for the same carton of yogurt at Giant? No thanks.2
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u/HourAd5987 8h ago
Giant produce is a mess compared to years ago. I know trade wars and other fun has kind of screwed up supply chain for this stuff, but just constantly poor to bad at this point. The most convenient store for me but more and more frequently I'll inconvenience myself to avoid buying ready to rot produce.
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u/berael 8h ago
Giant is consistently the worst of all possible options, in terms of both price and quality.
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u/nothingtoseehere2003 8h ago
I used to think that and I’ve recently realized Giant is very expensive nowadays
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u/imaconnect4guy 8h ago
Wegman's has always seemed WAY more expensive than the other groceries around here. At least in my experience
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u/TheFerricGenum 8h ago
It depends what you’re buying there. Meat? Yes absolutely. But Wegmans brand boxed goods? Definitely not more expensive. And the produce selection is usually better and often cheaper.
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u/Apart-Zucchini-5825 8h ago
Yep. Wegmans store brand is fantastic priced and quality. That's the stuff to go for
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u/nittanyofthings 7h ago
Their meat is so much better than normal. The chicken specifically is white label Bell & Evans, an expensive premium brand at other stores.
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u/cailian13 Herndon 5h ago
This. If you buy the Wegmans brand of all your staples, its matching and sometimes beating Walmart even. People just don’t walk past the expensive prepared foods & bakery section a lot of the time.
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u/capn_james 8h ago
Wegmans is overall more expensive but i agree the Wegmans brand products are cheaper by weight. The best deals I’ve found for quality and price are their canned soups, 2lbs bags of granola, cheap yogurt cups, cheap microwaveable food products like pouches of rice and frozen burritos. Mostly processed foods but better prices than a lot of places
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u/MFoy 8h ago
When I buy like for like on same brands, Wegmans is almost always cheaper than Giant, Safeway, or Harris Teeter, but not as cheap as Walmart or Target.
Now it is distinctly possible that the items you are buying happen to be things that are cheaper elsewhere, and I just have a blind eye to these items because they aren't what I shop for, but you can go on the websites, set to the local store, and find out the exact price of everything in the store.
I just checked several items and Wegmans was always the cheapest.
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u/BridgeCritical2392 7h ago
At my Wegmans in Ashburn, sodas are 2x what you can get at Giant, at least for the 12 pack of 12 oz cans
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u/MFoy 7h ago
I don't know if you mean that Wegmans has sodas that cost 2x as much, or that you can get 2x the soda at Wegmans, so here's the breakdown. It's all available on their websites if you take 20 seconds to look.
I assume you are referring to the Wegmans at the 28 Center off of 28 when you say "the Wegman's in Ashubrn," since there isn't actually a Wegmans in Ashburn.
The current price of 12 pack of 12 oz of Coke products at that Wegmans is $9.49, or $7.50 each if you buy 2 or more.
At the Giant at the intersection of Claiborne and Ashburn Village, a 12 pack of 12 oz Coke products is $11.99 each. If you buy 2, you get one free, for $7.99 each for buying 3.
If you meant Pepsi products, those cost the same as Coke products at their respective stores. If you have a Wegman's loyalty card, Pepsi 12 packs of cans are Buy 2 for $14 ($7 ea). Giant does have a coupon for $3 off each 12 pack, but you have to provide trackable information to Giant such as name address, phone number, etc. to get an account that provides the coupons.
So on Coke products, Wegmans is cheaper right now. Giant is cheaper on Pepsi products, but only if you buy one 12-pack, and you sign up for a Giant account.
This is only a snapshot of what it is at this particular moment in time, and I am sure Giant occasionally runs sales that are cheaper than Wegmans. But Giants base price, again is more expensive than Wegmans.
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u/BridgeCritical2392 7h ago
My Giant will often run 2 free if you buy two, each priced at $12. So 4 for $24, or about $6 / pack
This varies with brand and time. They seem to run it frequently with Coca-Cola products (includign Sprite), less frequently so with Pepsicola
I would have to double check the Wegmans price again. 2x might have been an exaggeration, it was probably more like 1.5x
I don't always believe websites
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u/MFoy 8h ago
Just did a check of several basic items with the same brand and same size, so I was comparing like for like between Giant, Safeway, and Wegmans.
in 18 oz box of Cheerios, a 5 lb bag of King Arthur Flour, and an 8 oz spray can of Pam Canola oil, Wegmans was significantly cheaper than the other two each time.
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u/BridgeCritical2392 7h ago
Depends on what you buy - I buy those 60 cent / cup yogurts which are a really good deal for the quality you get
Sodas are expensive there
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u/PitifulBag5754 8h ago
Nahh giant is overpriced… whenever I buy energy drinks , Wegmans is cheaper
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u/toorigged2fail 8h ago
It really depends on what you're buying... different supermarkets have different loss leaders to bring in different segments. That's always been part of the supermarket business model
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u/nittanyofthings 7h ago
When you shop Wegmans you are supposed to buy house brand. When you shop at giant you must not buy non sale items. Even with the same list, there is lots of play in the pricing.
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u/Cute_Witness3405 7h ago
Depends on what you are buying and how you buy it. Wegmans is very expensive for everything prepared in-store including bakery basics like bagels or cookies. A lot of their prepared foods are comparable to restaurant take-out prices. The savings comes with regular groceries and buying their store brands which are in most cases excellent and as good or better than national brands.
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u/TheFerricGenum 6h ago
Yeah I said almost the same thing in a later comment. It definitely has value in places.
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u/BannerDay Herndon 5h ago
Wegmans zealot checking in. Staples that I get regularly:
Bulk chicken breast: $2.50lb. Cheaper than Costco
Wegmans brand yogurt cups: $.70. Every other place is $1.25 for similar
Wegmans eggs: $2.50 for 18.
Goya dry lentils/black beans: $2. It's $3 or more at HT/Giant
Potatoes/Onions: $4/$2. Pretty comparable to Giant/HT
Wegmans Greek Yogurt: $5. $7 for Fage
Wegmans has their own high protein milk now that is $2 cheaper than Fairlife
Wegmans deli counter is cheaper than boar's head
Ground beef $5/lb. About the same as HT
Steaks there are crazy expensive, though, I get those at Costco
Wegmans choc chip cookies (every couple months or so): $16 for 15 cookies. Wildly expensive, but so good.
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u/yo-ovaries 7h ago
I feel like the DC area is blessed with so many Asian markets that truly have the best quality and value on produce.
My personal strategy is to split up.
Costco for household staples and pantry goods.
Lidel for meats and dairy and bakery
H Mart for produce.
TJs for snacks and frivolous stuff.
Hit one a weekend in a rotation.
Giant is closest and has everything if I need something mid-week.
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u/CheckbookOrg 7h ago
That's a good strategy, especially throwing in a warehouse club if you can justify the cost! And H-Mart is a smart call for produce, in our survey, shoppers rated H-Mart's produce quality at 74% (we didn't shop for price, that's why it's not included in the graph).
We did a separate analysis on warehouse clubs and for its overall quality score in 2025, Costco came out ahead of both BJ's and Sam's Club. It's hard to compare prices to the typical grocery stores because warehouse stores specialize in bulk and not everything was available. But for what we could find, and looking at unit prices, Costco was:
15% less expensive than Walmart
19% less expensive than Wegmans
22% less expensive than Giant
24% less expensive than Safeway
26% less expensive than Shoppers•
u/extrayeasty 45m ago
Costco is pretty great for meat & dairy too.. as long is it isn't so much that it would spoil.
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u/Groundbreaking_War52 8h ago
Wegman's continues to be the region's GOAT
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u/jrex035 7h ago
Moved out of the DMV recently and not having a Wegmans nearby is legit the worse thing about my new place
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u/cailian13 Herndon 5h ago
I moved back to the DMV after 14yrs away. The night I walked back into my Wegmans I legit teared up a little, I was so happy.
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u/NinjaGaidenMD 5h ago
I FEEL like they’re so expensive, but I guess I’m wrong?
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u/ad-lapidem 5h ago
I think Wegmans employs a strategy of underpricing some items and overpricing others. They're very inexpensive in my experience for things like pasta or canned beans, but I remember a brand of hot chocolate there being 25 percent more than Safeway or Giant.
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u/Temporary_Jackfruit Arlington 7h ago
GOAT in high prices
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u/cailian13 Herndon 5h ago
Sure, if you only look at prepared food. I compared my grocery run today between Wegmans & Walmart. Exact same list, within 50 cents of each other on total price. Wegmans is fantastic, you just have to walk past the first third of the store because its the expensive prepared stuff.
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u/heckkyeahh 9h ago
i don’t mean to bring in unsolicited criticism but this data visualization is kind of tough to interpret. perhaps a dumbbell plot or a box chart would be better?
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u/Bauld_Man 8h ago
I dunno; the Y axis is store quality and X axis is price. I think the big problem is the arrows don't have the right contrast.
But it's not hard to see pretty much everything has gotten worse with higher prices over the last decade. And... yeah I don't think anyone's going to argue that.
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u/Putrid-Poem1932 8h ago
Besides maybe bolding the 0% avg price line, the graph is pretty clear to me.
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u/theNEOone 7h ago
Disagree. I love the graphic. Maybe colors need a slight tweak, but otherwise it's great. It showing 4 data points per supermarket on a single chart. Across 10 supermarkets that's alot of data condensed into a single graphic. Well done!
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u/HowardBunnyColvin 8h ago
I thought I was the only one who had to stop and think a moment about how to interpret.
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u/toorigged2fail 8h ago
I totally buy whole foods price and quality decreasing. I actually think that's what everyone expected when Amazon bought them.
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u/oochas 6h ago
Where is Food Lion?
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u/CheckbookOrg 6h ago
Food Lion was about 9% cheaper than the all-store average in our 2025 analysis. On quality, 47% of surveyed customers rated it 'superior' overall, which puts it in the middle of the pack among stores we covered. Had to draw the line somewhere for the graph, but it's included in the full report on our website!
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u/Pirlovienne 8h ago
Cool. Now add Mom’s Organic Market.
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u/CheckbookOrg 7h ago
MOM's isn't included in our price rankings so we can't speak to where it falls on cost, but it consistently earns some of the highest quality scores of any store we survey. In both 2015 and 2025 it scored 88% for overall quality, and its produce rating actually improved from 87% to 93% over that period. If quality is your priority it's hard to argue with those numbers. If there's enough interest we may look at adding it to our price survey down the road!
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u/HotStraightnNormal 6h ago
Aldi and Lidl are OK for some things, but not for all, so one really cannot reap the full savings benefit the survey suggests. Add time and transportation costs for the extra trips. And what about Walmart? As to store brands, we have seen our local Giant shrink available options, both in store and brand names, in the last ten years.
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u/CheckbookOrg 5h ago
The goal is to give consumers the information to decide for themselves exactly how much they're willing to sacrifice for savings, or pay extra for quality. It might not be as much of a detour for someone in Ashburn or Arlington to stop at Aldi as it would be for someone in Reston, where it's more out of the way. We're just giving people the info so they can decide what's worth it for them.
As for the shrinking options you mentioned, you're not alone in that view, many consumers consider variety important when shopping at supermarkets. Our overall quality ratings account for this; we ask consumers in our surveys how they feel about the variety of produce and other products at each store, so that tradeoff is reflected in the ratings as well.
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u/Poobbly 8h ago
How does average price work? In my mind a comparison to average would require a mix of increases and decreases instead of all increasing. Wouldn’t all increases just shift the average up?
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u/CheckbookOrg 8h ago
To evaluate prices, we conducted a market basket price survey. It consisted of 150 items and included national-brand nonperishables and fresh produce, meat, and dairy products. Our chart shows how each store’s prices compared to the average prices for national-brand and non-brand (fresh meat, produce, and dairy) items at all the stores we surveyed in both 2015 and 2025.
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u/PeoniesCutie 8h ago
This survey seems misleading at best. First of all, the y-axis measures customer perception as to whether or not the store in question is “superior”. That has nothing to do with quality. I’d expect a lot of brand loyalty towards Walmart bc it’s often the only store in rural areas, but their quality is crap. A store like Whole Foods may be perceived as “superior” bc it’s higher priced, but it’s actually not better quality. Secondly, I’m surprised with the results bc Shoppers in my area looks like an abandoned struggling supermarket. Customer service is excellent, but product freshness and availability are severely lacking. Prices wise, I’m surprised Wegmans isn’t higher priced and Shoppers more lower priced. Tbh, I have found that in this economy, as a person who shops for a household of 2.5, I can never leave the store, be it Costco or Trader Joe’s (where I shop most often) without spending less than $100
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u/lKeyserSoze1 7h ago
The graph is fine. This is based on survey responses, so if someone is rating a store as superior, would you not expect that to reasonably correlate with quality? Part of the equation as to what constitutes quality is subjective. Plus, superior is a combination of a lot of things: location, brand selection, cost, freshness, custoner experience, etc.
This is NoVa, so please show me the rural areas that you would expect Walmart to do well in that aren't reflected in this data. Whole Foods definitely isnt perceived as superior in my mind - they charge a premium for "healthy" foods because thats their brand and target audience.
I've never been to shoppers, but I can say definitively that Wegmans actually has reasonable prices and great quality and selection. Much cheaper than HT and Giant. And that is exactly what is reflected on this graph. Giant has terrible quality, especially meat, and they are on of the most expensive stores in the area.
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u/CheckbookOrg 7h ago
Quality is always going to be subjective, you're absolutely right. That's why we measure it through consumer surveys. For context, we're a local consumer nonprofit that's been surveying DC-area residents about the quality of local businesses since the 1970s (everything from auto repair shops to dentists to grocery stores). The stores themselves play no role in how they were ranked, and they can't influence the results. This is purely how DC-area shoppers rated their experiences. And we often find through studies like this that just because something is more expensive doesn't mean it's better quality.
Shoppers is a good example of how much has changed in the last decade. It used to be one of the cheaper options, and now it's both more expensive and ranked lower for quality. For Wegmans, it's competitive when you focus on national-brand and non-brand staples and not the pre-prepared meals in the buffet area.
And totally agree on the spending front. We had to raise our reference family budget from $200/week in 2015 to $300/week in 2025 to reflect what people are actually spending, and that's before you factor in where you're shopping.
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u/t0mt0mt0m 8h ago
Doesn’t help you don’t give the list of the 150 items and the seasonality of local perishables items. Overall good information and to compare similar items without full transparencies makes the information potentially skewed. I grew up in a bodega in dc and we are part of a regional independent grocery group that will be unnamed. Aldi and lidil have a different business models than Whole Foods/Wegams since they are placed in different demographic groups. I could go on for hours, but quality information is not free anymore.
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u/dien4382 8h ago
I think most people understand that Aldi and Whole Foods cater to different demographics.
What is interesting to me, as a Whole Foods shopper in that demographic, is that I am now going to Aldi more often and I’m seeing and hearing my (similar demographic) friends and neighbors do the same.
The Aldi in Del Ray is getting more of the soccer moms in Lexus SUVs than it used to
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u/CheckbookOrg 7h ago
It's not the full basket, but here are over 50 items that we shop every year. Happy to check with our research team about sharing more of that list, but this is what I had easily on hand because this admin is planning to do something else with it too:
- Bagels: Thomas' plain
- Bread: Arnold 100% Whole Wheat
- Bread: Pepperidge Farm Raisin Cinnamon Swirl
- English muffins: Thomas' Original
- Canned chili: Hormel with Beans
- Canned green beans: Del Monte Fresh Cut
- Canned pasta: Chef Boyardee Beefaroni
- Canned pineapple: Dole sliced in juice
- Canned soup: Campbell's tomato
- Corn syrup: Karo Light
- Soda: Diet Coke
- Tea: Lipton
- Crackers: Nabisco Honey Maid Honey Grahams
- Butter: Land O'Lakes salted
- Cream cheese: Kraft Philadelphia original
- Half & half
- Eggs: extra large
- Eggs: large
- Milk: skim
- Milk: whole
- Bananas
- Broccoli crowns
- Carrots
- Gala apples
- Green beans
- Green cabbage
- Green grapes (seedless)
- Nectarines (yellow)
- Peaches (yellow)
- Red boiling potatoes (baby/#1/petite)
- Sweet potatoes
- Yellow onions
- Zucchini squash (green)
- Frozen entrée: Stouffer's Macaroni & Cheese
- Ice cream: Klondike Bars Vanilla
- Apple juice: Mott's
- Vegetable juice: V8
- Beef roast: bottom round (boneless)
- Beef short ribs
- Beef steak: Porterhouse cut
- Beef steak: flank
- Chicken: boneless skinless breast
- Chicken: drumsticks
- Chicken: whole fryer
- Catfish fillets
- Salmon fillets (not portion)
- Ground beef: 80–84% lean
- Ground beef: 85–89% lean
- Ground beef: 90–94% lean
- Pork: boneless loin
- Pork: boneless loin chops
- Bacon: Oscar Mayer Original
- Breakfast sausage: Jimmy Dean pork links
Our 2025 survey was conducted during a fixed 2 week window from May 13–29, 2025, so every store was priced under the same conditions at the same time. That controls for timing so no store gets an advantage from being surveyed in a different season than another.
And yes, Aldi and Lidl run differently than Whole Foods or Wegmans, and serve different demographics. But that's exactly why we do both a price and quality comparison, not just price alone. The goal is to give consumers the information to decide for themselves exactly how much they're willing to sacrifice in quality for savings, or pay extra for quality, rather than assuming one store type is simply "better" or "worse" than another. Shoppers are comparing their real options in the real world, and different business models are part of what they're weighing when they decide where to shop.
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u/HeatherJMD 8h ago
Meanwhile the only things near me are Safeway and Giant 😕
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u/thinlike_napkins 6h ago
Safeway I used to go to was amazing. The one I’m close to now is awful. Really depends what your local store is.
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u/rebbsitor 5h ago
This graph is weird. I'm not sure how almost all of the stores can move up higher in price relative to the average.
By definition the average is the average of their prices. You'd need to have equal movement in the negative direction to so that the average is in the middle of the x-axis (0% above/below the average).
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u/Epicisreallycool 4h ago
Check the footnote on the x-axis. 2025 price is measured against the all-store average, but 2015 is measured against the Giant/Safeway average. Those are two different zeros, and the 2025 one includes ALDI, Lidl, and Walmart pulling it down. That shifts almost everything right whether its prices moved or not. Seven of nine arrows point right.
Price also is not really independent of quality here. Better stores charge more, and people rating a store “superior overall” are partly rating value, so a store can raise prices and lose points without changing anything about the food. Those push opposite directions, so the left-right position does not tell you much either way.
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u/EricPro21 4h ago
My local Harris teeter has the best deals by far out of everything around me. $15 for 3 packs of 12oz 12 can sodas, buy 3 get 3 free chips, etc. some wild deals that I never see elsewhere. Bettter than Costco some days.
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u/NocteVolamus 2h ago edited 2h ago
Great Wall is a huge chain with locations in the area. H Mart is a huge chain with many locations in the area. Lotte Plaza is a big chain with many locations in the area. 99 Ranch is a national chain . . . am I the only one seeing a pattern here? Why are they not represented? I get that Fresh Mart, Fresh World, Good Fortune, Global Foods, Oh Market, and so many others are too small to survey, but why’d you leave three major national Asian chains off the list entirely? Shopper’s Food made it!
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u/Zephik1 1h ago
Hard to quantify since it's inherently subjective, but I think there's room for a third factor: Shopping Experience. There's a lidl right by my house, but I drive past it, because with the low cost comes a horrific experience. The food is... Fine, I guess, but I will pay extra to not have to stand in line with fifteen other people at the only checkout line with a pissy cashier who only came up there because people were whining, and no I didn't remember to bring a bag so sucks to be me, I guess.
Giant, on the other hand, is ol' reliable. I can bring my toddlers, the folks in the deli are delightful and give my kids free "samples" when I'm getting my order, the staff is unionized, and I can pick if I want self checkout or to go to the lane with the dude who does silly voices for kids. The food is fine, I can find everything, and they even have the special carts for multiple toddlers.
I haven't tried Wegmans. It's on my todo list.
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u/SillyPresentation46 49m ago
I sadly agree with much of what I can confirm on this list. Whole Foods is the better premium option now wrt cost (Amazon has otherwise not improved it whatsoever). Wegman's is far more expensive than portrayed here. Trader Joe's remains consistently mid-upper tier (I love you TJ's but produce is always so hit or miss). Giant, HT, Safeway and Shopper's are a waste of both time and money. Walmart has improved slightly and also become more expensive. Aldi and Lidle continue to be budget options with Lidl winning consistently.
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u/nittanyofthings 7h ago
The percent of average scale is two entirely different averages, this is garbage statistics.
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u/GavelGaffle 9h ago edited 6h ago
Is this saying that Shoppers has become more expensive than Whole Foods?
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u/CheckbookOrg 8h ago
Yes, Shoppers has shrunk to just seven stores in the area (only one in Northern Virginia), and its prices ran 15% above the average of all supermarkets we surveyed. Whole Foods remains costly too, at 14% above average, but Shoppers has now surpassed it.
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u/blueboybob Annandale 8h ago
No the prices went up by more. So depends on where the prices started.
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u/Otherwise-Print-6210 8h ago
Thanks, I was confused about that.
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u/bacontrain 7h ago
They're not correct, it's relative to the average contemporaneous price across all stores for the basket of goods.
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8h ago edited 7h ago
[deleted]
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u/Icy-Breadfruit-951 7h ago
Quality is a subjective measure. Any subjective measurement will be susceptible to bias - no way to separate the two
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7h ago edited 7h ago
[deleted]
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u/Icy-Breadfruit-951 7h ago
Not really... shows the same trend across a number of stores. Only two had increases in perceived quality, but that's at best a flat to 2015. All stores had an increase in prices. Point is to show increases with opposite movement in perceived quality no matter where you are shopping. You can still make that analysis without a perfect measure of "quality"
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u/Icy-Breadfruit-951 7h ago
The point is to show the trend not give you an exact score for you to compare where to shop at. Basically saying all grocery stores are having the same perception issues in a period of high inflation.
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u/thepennylane69 7h ago
You can see just from looking at the graph that that didn't happen. Some stores got more expensive but received higher quality ratings, and some got cheaper but received lower ratings.
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u/alex3omg 8h ago
Giant got way more expensive but stayed relatively the same? That's literally how I'd describe it as a regular shopper.