Thankfully, this is an easy one - the survey doesn’t compare branded supermarket products with store brand Aldi items. So for example, with the branded item Weet Bix, these are sold at Aldi. You can probably gather from the list that there is a mix of item categories, including branded, store brand and some fresh items such as carrots, and ‘like-for-like’ items are chosen under instruction by the mystery shoppers.
That seems pretty clear to me, how is that pointless or not comparing like with like?
From my interpretation of what you ask for, is that quality of the product should not play a part in the comparison? That would also be a very skewed result as nothing would be like for like, but likely ALDI would still win out as I have witnessed for myself in my weekly shops. I am blessed with a very nearby Costco which receives most of my $ spend. Though ALDI do have items I choose to use in preference to others e.g. their platinum dishwasher tablets, their Confidence toilet tissue and their Confidence Facial Tissues (Aloe Vera and Vitamin D), Their Rump Steak at ALDI is only $15.99 a kilo compared to Coles and Woolworths $20 at best price.
Veges at ALDI are almost always at lower prices than Coles and Woolworths, Tomatoes and Apples being consistent stars in this area. In my case I still get better prices at my greengrocers than I would have to pay at any Supermarket chain. Fresh milk from ALDI is always cheaper than the Coles and Woolworths brands, though often these are all sourced from similar and same suppliers. I love the tinned salmon from ALDI and it is cheaper than the Coles and Woolworths brands. I used to use the Trimat washing powders (they usually have high scoring product in reviews) but now use the Kirkland brand as it suits us better than any other brand we have tried.
Sugar from ALDI is cheaper than the other home branded sugar, and no need to buy a premium brand pure sugar unless a consumer prefers to pay premium prices for the same product. Their flour is cheaper, it has the same content as any other same type of flour, e.g. plain or self raising. Eggs are cheaper per dozen at ALDI, eggs all come from the same suppliers whether ALDI or the home brands and premium labelled ones in other Supermarkets. so labels are not an indication of any real difference in product.
I shop for 90% of my groceries at IGA . The reason being is something that has not been raised here . I ENJOY shopping there . The car parking spots are full size . My local Coles is like a destruction derby with car parking spots way to small . Friendly staff that pack your groceries and as mentioned by @Gregr their prices are often cheaper than Colesworths . I occasionally , very occasionally shop at Coles .
Sigh, you still don’t get it.
Putting up a simplistic basket comparison like you did when some of the products are simply not like for like (home brand vs home brand) is just plain stupid.
You could just as well compare brand names at Woolies with home brands at Woolies. pointless.
Just based on this stupid exercise I don’t think I’ll bother renewing with Choice. This is NOT real information.
I’m just a member like you, I do help by moderating the Community but I am not an employee of CHOICE. Further, the CHOICE basket comparison was done by CHOICE on behalf of the Federal Government who both commissioned the exercise and paid for it. No CHOICE membership funds were used to carry out this Government survey.
Home Brand Vs Home brand are not all like for like, that is proven time after time in many of the products reviewed by CHOICE as part of it’s own funded review programs. Not every home branded product is as good as some branded ones and some premium branded products do not come even close to being as good as home branded products. The comparison of home brand against home brand is not much like comparing like for like, though in some cases it would be if say comparing fresh milk with fresh milk, or eggs with eggs.
Why would comparing Home Brand with Branded products be pointless? Certainly would be great to know when buying home branded is saving money when there is no difference between a premium branded and a home branded product or even more so when the home branded product out compares the premium brand and at a far better price point for a consumer?
There are, of course, some consumers who are welded to premium brands even when there are some that are some of the poorer choices in the marketplace. If they want to buy the product, I am not one to stop them as they are free to make their choice in regards to where they spend their money and what they get for their money. I am however wanting to get the best bang for my buck as I am sure most of us are, this is where CHOICE excels in providing unbiased information about where consumers will get the best results for money spent.
Tonight I saw an Aldi ad that compared Aldi with a competitor. It said that Aldi was 31% cheaper.
The Aldi products were all generic while none of the competitor’s products were generic. They all seem to be well-known (i.e. had used advertising) brands and products like Bega and Sanitarium’s Up and Go.
Though at a glance the Aldi generic products look like premium brands and products.
Aldi is probably still cheaper overall but I think that ad was misleading.
Not pointless if it is openly the point of the comparison. But this comparison tried to show Aldi in a good light by not comparing apples with apples. It’s pretty obvious really.
You have raised a good point and ALDI was wrong to do this.
However from ALDI’s perspective they know that many of their generics/home brands are equal in quality to the major brand name products.
In my house about 90% of household products are generic/home brands and I will certainly not use inferior products, they absolutely must be top performing and great tasting.
The quality of generics/home brands is very good and most are backed by a money back guarantee, if something doesn’t taste good or perform it’s going straight back to the supermarket for a refund.
I have done this a few times and have never had any trouble getting a refund on a generic/home brand product.
Looking at what each household considers the most regularly purchased 10 -20 supermarket products.
What would your selection be, by brand and product size?
Which supermarket/s or stores does one choose?
What is the regular cost at ones chosen store?
At what cost the same products cost at Aldi - accepting Aldi for many products has unique brands?
If ones preferred supermarket offers store/home brand alternatives are these the first choice in one’s personal shopping list?
We could each take on the challenge and compare how it is at our chosen shops.
Our weekly buys include bread, milk, fresh fruit&veg, eggs, red meat, chicken, fish, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, toilet paper, and ….? Pasta, Rice, Oats, Wheetbix, Butter, cheese, cereal etc are less often. Staples such as flour and sugar are occasional purchases.
It’s likely some budgets might only include low grade mince, cheap chicken, rice and beans along side the store brand bread and milk. Other budgets might reveal a weekly shop of fresh Tasmanian salmon fillets and sirloin or better steak, with strawberries and blue berries as season dictates.
I see the Choice assessment as one which suggests to any one who is out to stretch the house hold budget - to look beyond the two dominant chains. It’s not there to tell anyone who is better off where to shop. Our choice is to purchase from the local butcher and local F&V. Hence our supermarket basket will be different to others. To note Aldi sell Tasmanian salmon fillets and top steak cuts, as well as cheaper choices, all under their home brand labels. No different to Coles or Woolies!
Hi @BrendanMays, thanks for your response. I still have major concerns and know I am not the only one, as evident by other members posts, including some long term subscribers to Choice.
The first thought I would like to make is:
it is very hard to gain trust/credibility, but extremely easy to lose it
In relation to your comments, I offer the following responses:
Why did Choice in its article and media releases state:
Our basket of brand products cost on average $69.33 at Coles and $68.58 at Woolworths (with no specials), while a comparable basket of Aldi brand products was just $51.51 .
This conflicts with your response, when information released publicly and has been questioned, indicates Choice has compared branded supermarket products with store branded Aldi products (excluding Weetbix which is available in all supermarkets). Who is right?
It appears Aldi, like members of the community, believe it was branded products in other supermarkets compared against Aldi’s store branded products. This is based on recent marketing campaign using the results.
The article presents a supermarket comparison using branded (Coles, Woolworths and IGA, store branded (Aldi) and fresh products (all supermarkets). Choice’s new standard of measuring pricing isn’t a fair comparison between Aldi and other supermarkets as higher priced branded supermarket products have been used, when cheaper store branded products would have been available, for comparing with Aldi’s store branded products (with exception of Weetbix). Choice can’t make the claim of what supermarket is the cheapest, as the cheapest product in each category wasn’t compared. This point is a major criticism shared within this thread as it favours Aldi. So much so, that Aldi is using the results for marketing purposes when the results aren’t comparing ‘apples with apples’.
This weakness in approach exposes Choice and its reputation. If I were Woolworths and/or Coles, I would be trying to discredit Choice’s survey. This could easily be done be commissioning a reputable survey company to do a survey based on the cheapest supermarket basket. The basket based on store branded products like that used by Choice in the past, using Choice’s current shopping list. A comparative survey of Aldi and other supermarkets are done at the same time. To ensure transparency, all information about the survey and how it was done is published. How will Choice defend its position and its ‘like-for-like’ process to argue while the supermarkets had cheaper item available for consumers, it chose more expensive branded products. Also how will it defend it’s position that it is unwilling to disclose details about the survey being conducted on behalf of the government.
Could you please confirm whether the mystery shoppers selected ‘like-for-like’ products based on what was available in store at the time of the store visit, or were the mystery shoppers provided with specific lists of product type, brand and size when shopping?
The reason for this question is the response provided suggests the mystery shopper made the selection in store based on instructions given. This is problematic as it has the potential to create inconsistencies and bias with products selected as the mystery shopper would be using their discretion, to best meet the required instructions, when in store. Is this one of the reasons why Choice chooses not to release product details as the products used in the survey are many and varied?
Like-for-like. Interesting. As Choice is conducting government sanctioned and funded surveys over three years, how is Choice planning to manage this. Long term subscribers to Choice know that Aldi (and other supermarket) store branded products change regularly, to ensure its products are competitive with the other supermarket store brand products. These changes have resulted in variations to performance, quality or testing panel satisfaction from test to test. If Choice is using like-for-like to compare Aldi store branded products with products from the supermarkets, this is flawed as there is no guarantee product composition won’t change.
In the past Choice has compared a representative ‘basket’ of store branded products across all supermarkets which is a fair approach and potentially balances the known fluctuations/regular changes in store branded product quality, performance and tester satisfaction. It is balanced as the basket will contain store branded products will be better, equal or worse than other competing supermarkets.
Choice hasn’t addressed why its long term established method for comparing Aldi and other supermarkets has changed. The argument of ‘like-for-like’ doesn’t stack up. If it does as Choice now claims, has there been failings in every historical supermarket survey done by Choice since Aldi’s arrival in Australia.
Choice has in the past been transparent and released products bought for supermarket comparisons, but, it is appreciated that release of such information could allow any supermarket to change pricing to cause biases over the survey period.
Tracking movements of product categories is very different to comparing pricing between supermarkets. The recent article is about comparing prices between supermarkets, not tracking changes in prices.
What is Choice doing?
While I appreciate Choice’s position, being secretive about product lists only raises suspicions that Choice has something to hide in relation to the supermarket comparison. This is especially the case when Choice has released such information in the past for previous supermarket surveys it has conducted.
If Choice is trying to do a ‘like-for-like’ product pricing to determine price movements with each supermarkets for equivalent products, this information should not be use for supermarket comparisons as it will be seen as biasing the results and could be used against Choice as indicated above.
While Choice may be trying to save costs to use the same data set for both assessment, this is problematic and readily challenged. For comparing supermarkets, wouldn’t it be better to follow Choice’s tried and tested methods where cheapest basket (store branded) and branded product basket are used for assessment purposes. It also provides information where the cheapest basket is available, and a representative cost if brand products formed the majority of one’s shopping basket. Relevance to one’s own shopping basket is known.
Choice should release the terms of reference of the survey process agreed with the government, in order to receive funding. This information isn’t commercial in confidence or commercially sensitive and might assist consumers in understanding what the purpose of the survey is and how it will be conducted. Such is important for any consumer to understand the context of the work Choice is undertaking on behalf of the government.
Instructions provided to the mystery shoppers should also be released. As it appears instructions define things like % tomato in a product, if Choice is concerned it will give away what products were purchased, the percentage number could be removed. Such information will give consumers background information in relation to how products were selected and the relevance of the survey to them. From current information posted, the survey may only be relevant to those shoppers who only use percentage of main ingredients for purchase decision-making.
I again suggest Choice read the first thought in this post again. These words I hope don’t haunt Choice into the future.
I value Choice’s commitment to uphold consumer rights. I am not alone in being extremely concerned that Choice’s recent approach to taking on the supermarkets, including using emotive wording without been backed by evidence, exposes it to significant reputational damage.
Aldi does not have to advertise its brands in the same way a national/multi-national brand does. That costs $$$ that does not have to be covered in markup. True Aldi produces catalogues, but they are a mix of grocery prices and their ‘special buy’ aisles merchandise - that often sell out quickly so whatever the cost it works for their bottom line.
Many throw stones at Aldi products but reality is many of their products get awards from Choice testing through to industry plaudits. An example is their ‘cheap wine’ that sometimes beats known labels for a fraction of the cost in shows and blind taste tests.
Religious beliefs in products and this and that are little match for statistical comparisons and blind testing against a documented standard. Our personal truths are our own. There are some Aldi products we buy that are ‘killers’ cheaper and better than any other source for our personal tastes, and some we try once and never again, and many that are close enough so good enough and it comes to availability and price.
As for availability and ranges, we have consistently found neither our Woolies or Coles consistently stocks things we regularly buy (empty shelves). Our Aldi only rarely has an empty unstocked shelf, admitting there are fewer products we buy there so it might be an unfair point of comparison.
As for vendors doing the system, it is time honoured. Fuel economy tests once (still?) had firmware that detected parameters used in testing and went into ‘special operational mode’. More than one was caught out and very significant fines levied. In years past (and ongoing) a high performance computing benchmark called Linpack was (and is) used. The compilers were taught to recognise it and do things that would not get correct answers in a general problem to maximise performance on Linpack testing. They were eventually caught out and had to ‘honest-up’ reducing their performance to ‘real’.
If the grocers knew ‘the basket’ they could lower the prices of those baskets and keep the prices sharp while reaping high prices on everything else.
Is it fact or a convenient assumption some consumers consider Aldi brands second rate?
Our family view is Aldi’s brands are on an equal footing with the nationally promoted brands available in Coles, Woolworths, Drakes, IGA etc.
Rather than suggest Choice is pro-Aldi, is there an anti-Aldi cohort to hold to account? A movement that aspires to only buy the frequently and aggressively marketed international brands. To note many of which products are according to Choice and other reviews less than worthy of purchase. The cynic here would say to some extent the big brands owners are actively encouraging consumers through influencers and other means to use perception to over value their products and devalue the competition.
I never indicated that was the case. What was indicated is across all supermarkets, there are store branded products where one supermarket may have a product seen to be better than the others, some products which are similar and others which are poorer in quality.
This has been verified by Choice, where store branded products from either Aldi, Coles, Woolworths and IGA are on Choice’s buy recommendation lists, while other store branded products from Aldi, Coles, Woolworths and IGA are on Choice’s avoid lists.
Choice has also found through testing that performance, quality and testing panel satisfaction can change between tests, as supermarkets change supplier and/or recipes. This has been subject of posts in the community and is well recognised. It applies equally to Aldi, Coles, Woolworths and IGA brands.
I never suggested this.
What I indicated is there are inconsistencies between what has been posted by Choice in the community and within its articles/media releases.
I have also suggested that the information Choice has provided and has not disclosed will make them subject to criticism.
I also said that the validity and veracity of the survey can be challenged, and the process used by Choice favours Aldi. So much so, that Aldi is using the results in promotional activities.
Choice article is about ‘nationwide survey of grocery prices reveals which supermarket offers the greatest savings’ or the cheapest. This is misleading.
The last thing I want to see is Choice being challenged and unable to support the statements it makes. This is why I specifically posted the thought about reputation.
An interesting comment in the media:
From abc.net.au
“The report hadn’t even been publicly released before the supermarkets were questioning how Choice had reached their findings.
What were the grocery items? How many home brand products made it into the shopping basket given that Aldi doesn’t stock many of the major brands? Why was IGA ignored everywhere except for Tasmania and the Northern Territory?
Privately, the shared supermarket sentiment towards the report was: “Tell us something we don’t know.”
As one insider wryly remarked, they were compelling findings from a government-commissioned report that effectively cost taxpayers $92,000.
…In the same way that a supermarket isn’t built in a day, nor will a single report looking at grocery prices make your next shop cheaper. No-one knows that more than Choice — it’s perfectly aware that it can only do so much in the current climate. The consumer group says the real value will come as it sends more mystery shoppers into more supermarkets around the country to deliver more reports.
…Regardless, they’ve put the supermarkets on notice, whether the sector likes it or not (and whether they agree with the methodology).
It’s also precisely what the government is aiming to achieve: the impression that yes, it can in fact do something about supermarket prices right now.
But as the saying goes, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the first sign of madness…If you put aside the politics of the different inquiries that have come and gone in the past six months, they’re largely not telling us anything different.
There have been six inquiries running at the same time on a national level — five of them at the direction of the federal government — and another two by the Queensland and South Australian governments.
The outlier is the union-backed price gouging inquiry chaired by former ACCC boss Allan Fels, which handed down its findings in February…”
There has been a concerted campaign against ALDI ever since it landed on our shores. The big two chains in particular have tried to influence against ALDI penetration into the Supermarket sphere here. It was done by lobbying to limit places ALDI could be placed, it was picking on store branded lines as somehow being inferior, it was by changing the amount of store branded product the big two put on their shelves (many more store branded products), and controlling suppliers. Now the big two go out of their way to promote their own brands and their shelves hold much more store branded product.
To be honest, I only want best product for the lowest possible price. Premium, multinational owned, and branded product is only worth buying if it is best bang for my buck, if not it is ignored.
Jack the Slasher and a number of Supermarket type chains have tried to open the market up, none until now have really succeeded until ALDI entered. ALDI have the wealth and experience from their overseas operations to dig in and take the hits here, thankfully they have done so to the benefit for Australian consumers. ALDI entry brought change in how some of us can shop and save money. As I noted in a previous post we could have had larger chains here such as Kaufland and Lidl, the landscape appears to have been too toxic for them to proceed.
So some appear quite upset at the results in pricing, well that may be, but the fact still stands that based on CHOICE’s like for like choices it is cheaper to go shopping for a statistical basket of goods at ALDI. Sadly, for a number of everyday Australian consumers they do not and will not have access to the possible price savings that come from having an ALDI or whatever other large and not yet here chain of Supermarkets because of population density for the most part, distance from larger population centres, and the market domination by a particular two.
That is how the game is played and has been for decades. The sample size of goods in the survey is constrained by cost and there has been a decision made to concentrate on food (13 out of 14 items, the other was tea) which ignores several aisles of the supermarket given over to other goods (cleaners, kitchenware, medical, clothing, pet food, etc, etc). The headlines all ignored this and talk about supermarket grocery prices where food prices would be more accurate.
Also Choice made a tactical error by not pre-emptively explaining that name brand goods were not being compared to no-name goods. That allowed the critics an opening to sow confusion.
The process is a sample not an exhaustive analysis but that does not mean the conclusions are wrong, a great many situations where full data is inaccessible can be understood through sampling.
I doubt very much that the general conclusion that Aldi is significantly cheaper than the big two will be found to be in error, despite Colesworths picking at the margins. This is not the first time a survey has come to that result and won’t be the last.
Colesworths will continue to use general criticism rather than put the matter to bed by releasing enough data to settle it conclusively. As deniers of all shapes have found if you want inaction then confusion will do the job just as well as facts.
Nothing personal against Aldi, but with all respect, personally, Aldi is a non-player in the supermarkets field. It is obviously cheaper than the big Twos but we could look at other stores and find cheaper items there too (Costco, IGA, discount stores, even the Rejects shop has some food and cleaning products at a cheaper price).
As they say in the ad: Aldi good, different. Indeed it’s different with its limited variety of stock, no assistance on the floor, and those private labels being the Aldi Brand items.
What I do wonder at is the methodology that has compared items between the Big Two and Aldi, how was ‘like for like’ done? How expert were the mystery shoppers to determine equal value, or were they under instructions?
For example: “…a tin of tomatoes had to contain the same percentage of actual tomatoes…” but to me that’s not all that needs to be looked at as it also needs to be an assessment of those tomatoes if they are equally ripe, whole, juicy?
As I haven’t been given a list of the items that make up the basket, I can’t determine for my-self if I agree with the 'like for like’ aspect. I know from experience that it’s quite difficult to compare tins of the same product but of different brands and to determine that they are equal because there’s always a difference in some of the quantity and quality of the ingredients.
If the analysis is not a deep one there’s really no point doing it, Aldi is cheaper the same way that Kmart is cheaper than David Jones. But if we could prove that Kmart’s T-shirts don’t shrink, fade, or fall apart after a few washes than we would have a winner.
