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If you feel like your weekly grocery bill has jumped significantly over the past year, you’re not imagining it.
Grocery spend has recorded its biggest annual increase in five years, with comparison company Canstar Blue’s supermarket survey from customers showing the average weekly bill for a family of four up 11 per cent, from $216 to $240.
This puts the annual spend on groceries at $12,480, almost $3,000 more than the bill for a same-sized household in 2021.
According to the survey of 2,800 Australians, weekly shops included fruits, vegetables, dairy, bakery items, deli items, pantry items, drinks, frozen foods and household items.
Canstar Blue spokesperson Eden Radford told SBS News that while they were expecting an increase in the numbers, they didn’t expect it to be as big.
Radford said customers said they were increasingly feeling like they had to spend more at the supermarket, and felt they weren’t getting the same value as they were a few years earlier.
Average weekly spend for a grocery shop for a household of four has increased $25, compared to the previous year, according to Canstar Blue. Credit: SBS
Inflation easing, Grocery prices climbing
“I think, unfortunately, because of the increased costs over the last few years, it’s just added up,” Radford said.
“When you are getting a slight increase one year, unfortunately, those prices don’t go back down. They usually stay, or they usually increase again.”
Annual trimmed mean inflation has also been 2.7 per cent for the year ending 30 June, down from 2.9 per cent in the March quarter, according to the ABS.
Trimmed mean inflation is a measure of inflation that excludes the most extreme price changes, aiming to provide more reliable information about underlying inflation.
Radford said while there have been some decreases in inflation numbers, there are still “elements of inflation across all of the things that we’re purchasing”.
“It does come through in terms of how the supermarkets are bringing their goods to us,” she said.
“At the end of the day, when we’re shopping at that supermarket, the prices we’re paying often [are] the result of increased fuel costs or increased storage costs or increased needs to get it to the country. And that I think unfortunately is what we’re having to pay.”
Australian supermarkets have faced accusations of engaging in price gouging, a practice where businesses exploit higher demand or limited supply to substantially increase prices.
Supermarket giants like Coles and Woolworths have repeatedly denied these claims, while the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s report in March found no evidence of price gouging.
A report from consumer advocacy group CHOICE also showed that the location of shopping might impact grocery prices.
By comparing the prices of groceries at 104 supermarkets in 27 locations across Australia in March, CHOICE found that “the state you live in does make a difference to how much you pay”.
According to Canstar Blue’s report, households in the Northern Territory have the lowest average weekly grocery expenses, whereas those in Tasmania spend the most at supermarkets.
‘Frozen’ instead of ‘fresh’
According to Radford, the price increase has made people change “how they shop”.
“We’ve seen people, particularly in the last 12 months, choose to buy frozen instead of fresh,” she said.
“They are doing things like shopping at different times. So you know, either going very early or even late.”
Shopping around different supermarkets is also a new tactic among customers to face the rising prices, with Canstar Blue reporting more than 61 per cent of shoppers visit two or more supermarkets each week.
Overall, 80 per cent of Canstar Blue’s survey participants reported changing their shopping habits in the past year to reduce costs.
“Any increase in prices, particularly for something like the grocery bill for a family, is never good news, and it’s never something that is easy to manage,” Radford said.
“What we are hoping and what we’re seeing in this research is that more and more Australians are not just coping [with] it, they’re saying, ‘Gold on, maybe I can go try a different supermarket.'”
