Over the past five years, American grocery costs have soared. In 2022 alone, prices for food prepared at home jumped by a historic 11.8 percent from the year before, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index survey.
While prices haven’t dropped in 2025, the rate of inflation for groceries has for the most part slowed. In July, costs for groceries were 2.2 percent higher than the year before.
But prices in some food categories continue to rise. Beef costs were up to 11.3 percent more in July 2025 than the year before. Eggs, though cheaper than during the Great Egg Panic, still ran 16.4 percent more in July than the year prior. Add in the recent uncertainty about SNAP benefits and shifting prices due to tariffs, and many Americans are still stressed out in checkout lines.
Although we’re all paying more than ever for what we eat, there’s also more competition than ever in the Washington area’s supermarket scene. That ultimately benefits shoppers. The nonprofit Consumers’ Checkbook’s latest evaluations of local grocery stores found that most shoppers can save by taking advantage of several low-cost store options.
So which stores offer the lowest prices? Where can you find the freshest produce and meat? How much can you save by shopping at a low-cost player like Aldi, Lidl or Walmart? Are warehouse clubs worth the membership fees? Checkbook researchers shopped stores using a 150-item list to compare prices. We also surveyed our members to evaluate stores on quality of products and service. Here’s what we found.
Wegmans wins again
Wegmans continues its slow but steady East Coast expansion and now has more than a dozen stores in the DMV. Since opening its first D.C.-area location in 2004, the Rochester, New York-based chain has consistently earned high ratings from customers for quality. In our latest survey, 87 percent of customers judged it “superior” overall, and 85 percent rated its produce “superior.”
Although Wegmans’s prices aren’t among the lowest in the region, it remains competitive. On average, its prices were about 10 percent lower than those at Giant, Harris Teeter and Safeway and 15 percent lower than Whole Foods.
Aldi and Lidl offer huge savings
German-based discounters Aldi and Lidl, ubiquitous in most of Western Europe, continue to expand their U.S. footprints. These chains focus on low costs, and our price survey found them quite inexpensive: For our shopping list, Aldi’s prices were 36 percent lower than the all-store average and Lidl’s were 21 percent lower. Aldi’s per-unit prices were even lower than those at BJ’s, Costco and Sam’s Club.
These savings are partly explained by Aldi’s and Lidl’s small-format stores, which have much lower overhead costs than conventional supermarkets.
Aldi and Lidl also benefit from different expectations. Shoppers at Giant, Safeway, Walmart, etc., expect to always find their favorite brands in a variety of sizes. Like Trader Joe’s, Aldi and Lidl carry mostly their own brands, not national-brand products. Aldi and Lidl do offer some national brands, but selection is limited. In other words, you’ll find some of the most popular brands (Coke, Heinz ketchup, Hellmann’s mayo, etc.), but probably only in one size.
Shoppers at quirky Aldi and Lidl don’t expect wide choices of brands or sizes. Instead, they’re being offered comparable products in exchange for big savings. (To account for brand differences, Checkbook’s researchers used a modified market basket to compare prices at Aldi, Lidl and Trader Joe’s to those at conventional supermarkets.)
Other low-price standouts: Amazon Fresh, Walmart and Food Lion
Amazon Fresh’s prices were about 15 percent lower than the all-store average, Walmart’s 13 percent lower and Food Lion’s 9 percent lower.
For a family that normally spends $300 per week at the supermarket, a 15 percent price difference totals savings of $2,340 per year; a 9 percent difference yields $1,404 a year.
Amazon Fresh’s smaller-format stores — there are eight in the Washington area — focus on low costs and convenience (the company’s app keeps track of what you remove from shelves; when finished, you simply exit without scanning items). (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Warehouse clubs save you money — if you shop there often
The three warehouse chains all offer most shoppers significant savings. Sam’s Club, for example, beat Safeway’s prices by 33 percent. And compared with Safeway, the savings were about 31 percent at Costco and 28 percent at BJ’s.
In addition to having low prices, Costco received very high customer ratings for the quality of its meat and above-average scores for produce quality and overall quality. (BJ’s and Sam’s Club’s ratings were considerably lower than Costco’s.)
The savings at warehouse clubs might not justify paying their annual membership fees, though, if you don’t visit often. For example, BJ’s prices were only about 12 percent lower than Walmart’s; you’d have to spend $500 at BJ’s on products you could buy at Walmart before breaking even on BJ’s $60 annual fee.
And if half of what you buy is wasted because of spoilage, you won’t save by buying in bulk.
Giant, Harris Teeter and Safeway charged similar prices
Overall, the area’s biggest conventional supermarket chains had prices that were higher than average — and within 1 or 2 percent of one another. Giant, Harris Teeter and Safeway were about 25 percent more expensive than Walmart and 27 percent more than Amazon Fresh.
Whole Foods is expensive — and its quality ratings continue to dip
When Amazon purchased Whole Foods in 2017, many experts predicted the combination would punish its supermarket competition by combining Whole Foods’ solid reputation with Amazon’s distribution expertise. Many consumers hoped they’d pay Amazon-like prices for Whole Foods-quality products. That hasn’t materialized.
Whole Foods built a loyal following by offering high-quality produce, meat, prepared foods and generic staples. For years, it earned high marks in our consumer surveys, especially for produce and meat quality. Now, customers give it far lower scores: On our “overall quality” question, the percentage of customers rating the chain “superior” has dropped from more than 90 percent to 65 percent.
Whole Foods also remains the most expensive choice among the large chains in our survey. Its overall prices were about 14 percent higher than the average at all stores we surveyed, or about 18 percent higher than top-rated Wegmans and 34 percent higher than Amazon Fresh, its corporate sibling.
Target’s prices vary by location
Prices at the Target we shopped in the District were about 6 percent higher than the all-store average, but those at the Alexandria store we surveyed were about 3 percent lower than average. This difference mirrors results from our previous surveys. For other large chains, prices weren’t affected much by store location.
Shoppers Food prices now higher than even Whole Foods
The local chain, which 25 years ago provided one of the few low-priced alternatives to former juggernauts Giant and Safeway, now operates only a handful of local stores, and its prices were 15 percent higher than the average for all supermarkets we surveyed.
Safeway, Target and Walmart were rated lowest by customers
Target was rated “superior” overall by only 24 percent of its surveyed customers, and Safeway and Walmart by only 29 percent each.
Aldi, Amazon Fresh, Food Lion, Giant, Lidl and Shoppers Food all received “superior” ratings for “overall quality” from fewer than half of their surveyed customers.
Harris Teeter continues to surpass its main rivals
Although Harris Teeter’s prices were about the same as those at Giant and Safeway, it continues to receive far higher marks than those chains for quality. Harris Teeter received “superior” ratings for “overall quality” from 60 percent of its surveyed customers. It also received considerably higher scores than Giant and Safeway for “quality of fresh produce,” “quality of meats” and “staff helpfulness/pleasantness.”
Trader Joe’s remains popular
Seventy-six percent of survey respondents rated the funky-and-fun chain “superior” for “overall quality.” Although it’s not a price leader in the area, TJ’s prices were about 5 percent lower than the Giant/Harris Teeter/Safeway average and about 6 percent higher than Wegmans.
Raves for Mom’s Organic Market and other specialty stores
Along with Wegmans, for produce, Grosvenor Market, Mom’s, Sprouts Farmers Market and the Fresh Market received the highest scores for quality. For fresh meat quality, Balducci’s, Grosvenor and the Fresh Market were all rated “superior” by more than 90 percent of their surveyed customers.
Kevin Brasler is executive editor of Washington Consumers’ Checkbook and Checkbook.org, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help consumers get the best service and lowest prices. It is supported by consumers and takes no money from the service providers it evaluates. You can access Checkbook’s grocery stores report, which includes its full results and info on research methods, free until Dec. 20 at Checkbook.org/WashingtonPost/groceries.
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