We went grocery shopping across the city. Here are the cheapest prices we could find.

Daniel Davis feeds his family of four by mostly shopping at Aldi, a grocery store he says is the cheapest in the city.

“In my experience, usually stores like Fresh Grocer have the cheapest fruits and vegetables, but nobody has goods like cereal, milk, and bread as inexpensive as Aldi,” said Davis, 46, a lifelong South Philadelphian.

A general bird’s-eye view of Philly’s major grocery stores shows that Aldi is one of, if not the cheapest, grocery stores in the city, according to a price analysis of generic and inexpensive goods from a dozen supermarkets across the region. Using an 18-item shopping list, The Inquirer visited 12 major supermarkets from the Northeast to the Southwest to compare prices, from Oct. 18 to Oct. 31.

Understanding where to find the cheapest goods is a major concern for Philadelphians as consumer prices for food at grocery stores in the region have surged 24% since 2020, reports the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Consumer Price Index (CPI).

In 2022 alone, grocery store and supermarket food prices rose by more than 10% across the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the fastest price spike in more than 40 years.

But why?

Economists from the USDA’s Economic Research Service, who study economic and policy-related issues about food, say higher-than-usual inflation already made for historically high food prices in 2022, but two major events made things worse.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which heavily impacted energy costs of transporting goods, and a highly lethal avian flu that killed off 60 million birds in the U.S., causing egg prices to skyrocket more than 30%, made selling food in grocery stores significantly more expensive.

The good news for 2023 is that grocery store prices have only grown by 2.1% in the last 12 months, but they’re still above historic averages, say USDA economists.

“Over the past few years, just going to any supermarket like ShopRite, Acme, or Giant, my grocery bills went up about $150,” Davis said during an interview outside of Giant Heirloom Market in Center City. “We have a family of four, so probably [spend] around $500 every three weeks — it’s crazy.” On average, Pennsylvanians can spend $278 per person, per month, to pay for food and groceries, according to finance counseling company SoFi.

To find readers the cheapest grocery stores in Philadelphia, The Inquirer looked at prices of eggs, dairy products, meat, canned and packaged goods, and starches such as bread, pasta, and rice — items found at all stores. The grocery shopping took us to parts of Philadelphia such as Bustleton in Northeast Philly and Grays Ferry in Southwest. We even checked out the Trader Joe’s in Cherry Hill.

For the scope of the analysis, we stuck to major grocery store chains commonly found within Philadelphia. This means we didn’t include smaller grocery store chains, big box stores like Target and Walmart, or food coops. However, that doesn’t mean those places don’t offer savings too. For example, Consumers’ Checkbook found Walmart to have lower prices on average compared to many stores in the area.

German-owned discount grocers Aldi and Lidl are the cheapest grocery stores in the city. Other stores such as Grocery Outlet and Trader Joe’s are not as cheap as they advertise, while the grocery chains Giant, Fresh Grocer, and ShopRite offer some inexpensive products such as butter, cheese, and rice.

Recent reports from the Delaware Valley branch of nonprofit Consumers’ Checkbook that compare grocery stores for quality and price found that Aldi’s prices are 40% lower than the average price of goods across almost two dozen regional stores, making it the cheapest. Lidl was 33% cheaper.

Consumers’ Checkbook found Grocery Outlet to be 20% cheaper than most stores. However, The Inquirer’s analysis found that many of its products can be expensive, such as milk, which was one of the most expensive at nearly $5 per gallon.

Additionally, Trader Joe’s still beats out many traditional stores on prices, like in Cherry Hill where whole milk is $3.79 per gallon (however, that’s because milk prices have a minimum set by each state, and New Jersey’s is cheaper than Pennsylvania’s minimum price), but some products cost double what other stores charge due to a lack of nonorganic versions or products not being available in bulk.

For example, Aldi and Lidl sell coffee for a little over $4 per pound, whereas Trader Joe’s cheapest coffee is closer to $9 per pound. Giant in South Philly sells rice for 60 cents per pound; Trader Joe’s rice sells for $1.10 per pound. Four pounds of sugar costs less than $3 at Aldi and Lidl, but the same amount is nearly $8 at Trader Joe’s, according to The Inquirer’s price analysis.

This means that if shoppers want the lowest grocery bill possible, they’re going to need to make more than one stop. According to Consumers’ Checkbook, Trader Joe’s only carried half of the items they shopped for; ALDI only had 59%; and Lidl stocked 62% of products shopped for.

The goal is to complete a grocery trip with the lowest cost and least amount of stores visited — no one wants to spend a week’s salary or a weekend afternoon in multiple supermarkets. This analysis also doesn’t take into account the quality of products offered at each store, which can vary.

Based on the 18-item shopping list across 12 stores, we found that your best option is:

Try the discount grocers Aldi or Lidl for as many products as you can find. Besides some meat products and specialty goods that don’t have a generic equivalent, you can get the most inexpensive eggs, dairy products, starches, and canned and packaged goods (such as cereal, coffee, and peanut butter) overall at these stores.

Grocery Outlet and Trader Joe’s offer inexpensive prices too, but only on certain goods. For example, Grocery Outlet has the cheapest pasta and second-cheapest rice in the city; however, it has some of the most expensive milk and butter. Prices can fluctuate because Grocery Outlet sells national-brand goods that other stores had extra of, at a discounted price.

Trader Joe’s has some of the cheapest eggs, milk, pasta, and cereal around, but sells the most expensive sugar and second-most expensive coffee in the area. The benefit of Trader Joe’s is that it’s the top-rated local grocery store in the quality of their produce and overall quality, only behind Whole Foods, according to Consumers’ Checkbook.

After the bargain stores, visit Giant, Fresh Grocer, or ShopRite for everything else. While Acme has some of the cheapest ground beef in the area with prices as low as $3.79 per pound, Giant, Fresh Grocer, and ShopRite’s ground beef isn’t that much more expensive, and they tend to have overall cheaper products than Acme, including other meat products such as chicken and deli meat.

Additionally, Giant, Fresh Grocer, and ShopRite rank higher in the quality of their produce and overall quality than Acme, according to Consumers’ Checkbook.

The usual suspects, Acme and Whole Foods, are the most expensive supermarkets in the city. Trader Joe’s also becomes one of the most expensive if you attempt to get all your groceries from there, especially meat, rice, sugar, and coffee.

While Acme and Whole Foods have specific products, such as Acme’s ground beef or Whole Foods’ whole wheat bread, that are far cheaper than most stores, these two stores cost more money to shop than all others on average. According to Consumers’ Checkbook, Acme’s prices are 12% higher than competitors and Whole Foods is a whopping 21% higher.

The upside for Whole Foods is that it’s among the region’s top-ranked grocery stores in overall quality, and, according to a report by international sustainability nonprofit Greenpeace, it’s one of the most sustainable supermarkets in the country.

However, to really drive home the appeal of Aldi — the cheapest grocery store in Philadelphia — it’s an industry leader in sustainability, ranking #1 in that same report of most sustainable U.S. grocery retailers.