When it comes to buying fresh fruits & vegetables, it can be hard to find quality produce on a budget. There’s always the fear that something will wilt or go moldy soon after you bring it home if you “cheap out” too much. Luckily you can still save money on groceries without surviving only on canned corn!
So I’ve been doing some research. My husband switched to a completely plant-based diet a year ago, and I’ve needed to track down the best prices to keep our family’s grocery budget in check. Not only have I been comparing all the stores in my local area, but I’ve been asking around on social media what all my frugal friends around the country have noticed in their areas.
For the carnivores among us, I’ve also done the same style of research to find out the grocery stores with the cheapest meat prices, too!
Today, I’ll tally up which stores come out on top, and which stores are best avoided if you only want to shop at the grocery stores with the best prices. Let’s get right to it.
Survey Results- Cheapest Grocery Store for Fruits & Vegetables
First, I checked in with a favorite group of budget grocery shoppers on Facebook. Because food prices vary so widely from place to place, I needed to make sure I wasn’t just limiting my information to my corner of New England.
According to the poll, 67% of budget grocery shoppers believed that Aldi had the best prices for fruits and vegetables. This was followed with Walmart in a distant second, with 11%, and the remaining 22% of voters spread their votes out over an additional 18 grocery stores.
This shows that, although Aldi and Walmart have the largest fan clubs, they certainly don’t always have the best prices. Some of the other stores which received more than 1% of the votes were Costco, Sam’s Club, Lidl, and WinCo.
Comparing Grocery Stores’ Produce Prices
Here’s a selection of five items from my closest Aldi, Costco, Sam’s Club, and Walmart. (Because I don’t have a WinCo or Lidl anywhere near me, I couldn’t include them for comparison, as their prices would be more reflective of location than the cheapness of their store.) As you can see, no store had the best price on every item. However, Aldi did have the best prices more often than the other three stores.
| Item | Aldi | Costco | Sam’s Club | Walmart |
| Oranges | $1.00/lb | $1.24/lb | $1.06/lb | $1.58/lb |
| Strawberries | $2.75/lb | $3.21/lb | $3.12/lb | $2.48/lb |
| Sweet potatoes | $0.92/lb | $0.90/lb | $1.40/lb | $0.98/lb |
| Green peppers | $0.85/each | $1.17/each | $0.91/each | $0.88/each |
| Avocados | $0.79/each | $0.97/each | $0.87/each | $0.96/each |
I will say I was surprised. A few years ago, Aldi’s prices were way less expensive than other stores in my area. However, now they’re only slightly less expensive– mere pennies per pound or item. This means that while you still can save money at Aldi, it’s probably not as good a deal as it was a few years ago.
However, while I was trying to literally compare apples to apples here (for example, per each or per pound of produce), these four stores packaged produce very differently. For example, Walmart generally offered the smallest portions; you could buy an individual pepper, avocado, or potato in almost every instance. But with the bulk stores like Sam’s and Costco, the produce was only available in larger quantities, up to 15lbs for things like onions or potatoes.
Aldi falls somewhere in the middle for most fruits and vegetables. They have pre-bagged produce in set sizes for most items, but they tended to be smaller, in the 3-5lb range. If you can’t eat even a small bag before it all goes bad, however, you’ll save more money with single pieces of produce.
Can Other Stores Have Better Prices?
Although stores like Aldi and Walmart are great for having consistently low prices, there are plenty of times when it’s worth checking out other stores.
Stores that offer “loss leader” sales have great prices on the sale produce of the week, but higher prices on the fruits and veggies that aren’t on sale. (If you’re unaware, a loss leader sale means the store sells an item at a loss to themselves to lead you into the store. Hopefully to buy many more expensive items.) You can save lots of money on your produce if you go to these stores only to buy whatever’s on sale, then leave. Stores like Kroger, Albertson’s, and Publix follow this model, but any store with a weekly flyer falls into this camp, too.
Many of those who answered my poll noted that places like Asian markets have great prices on fresh fruits and vegetables. This is because lots of Asian diets are produce-heavy, so those stores are highly motivated to attract those clients by offering great prices on the things their customers want most. I agree! My local Vietnamese-owned market sells fruits and veggies for a fraction of what I’d pay in a traditional grocery store.
Other Tips to Save Money on Produce
If you don’t have many options when it comes to grocery stores in your area, or if your only choice is more expensive, there are still ways to save money.
One of my favorite tips is to weigh pre-bagged produce. You know that 5lb bag of oranges? It’s probably not exactly 5lbs! After all, the packers can’t cut off part of an orange to make it the correct weight. So grab a few bags and head to the hanging scales most produce sections offer. Some “three pound” bags might be more like two and a half pounds, but some might be more like four pounds! Pick whichever bag weighs the most and score.
You can also skip more prepared and heavily packaged foods, since the store needs to charge more for those to recoup lost costs of labor and plastic. As long as you can cut a watermelon or wash your lettuce yourself, you can save tons simply by purchasing the produce “au natural.”
For more tips, you can check out my video on the topic below!
There you have it! If you’d like to know the next time I post articles to help you save money on groceries or parent on a budget, be sure to subscribe to my email newsletter below.