How to Get the Biggest Bang for Your Buck at the Supermarket, as Inflation Sees Food Prices Soar

Everyday costs continue to place a strain on everyday Aussies with the price of groceries increasing to a point where folks are being driven to change their shopping habits. In fact, there have been reports of families in remote areas being forced to forgo fresh produce because of unjustifiable costs.

Which food items are most expensive right now?

In March 2022, we wrote about the most significant price changes Australia was seeing in grocery stores. Things have only escalated from here.

A recent email from the CEO of Woolworths, Brad Banducci, states that initially, food inflation was affecting meat and imported products most, but more recently, this has spread out across almost all kinds of food items. As you’ve likely noticed, there have been spikes in the price of lettuce, cucumbers and capsicum in particular.

Woolworths states that inflation is being seen across vegetables “given the very poor growing season on the Eastern Seaboard, due to the rain, high humidity and low light levels”.

Additionally, there have been reports of increases seen in the price of tomatoes, broccoli and zucchini. It’s widespread and it’s impacting most people.

Okay, so what the hell do we do?

Well, first of all, Woolies announced recently that it would be inputting a price freeze on selected items to attempt to cushion some of the blow of food price changes for Aussies.

In an email on the update, Banducci shared that “we [Woolworths] added a Price Freeze until the end of the year on everyday essentials like Woolworths Essentials Laundry Powder, Woolworths Pasta and Little Ones Nappies until the end of the year”. You can find the full list here.

He also stressed the importance and value of shopping seasonally:

“With the price of fresh vegetables impacted by weather, try frozen. They are great value, you only use what you need and still get all the nutritional benefits. Shopping seasonally is also a great way to find value – right now, it’s Australian citrus season which means an abundance of Imperial mandarins & Navel oranges.”

If you’d like a complete guide to seasonal produce in Australia, we’ve pulled one together for you here.

As the Guardian reported in early June, winter veggies like cauliflower and Asian greens are not being affected by expensive food price hikes because they’re in larger supply right now. And you should try shopping around at other supermarket options or smaller grocers to see if you can land a better price, which we wrote about here.