CHARLOTTE — As inflation eases throughout the economy, some may be choosing to shop at the “cheapest” grocery stores.
They may have the lowest prices overall, but analysts found they also increased their prices the most over the past year in the Charlotte area. Bank of America analyzed the local grocery market to get a specific measure of inflation in the Queen City.
“When we conduct these price studies, we’re really looking as much as we possibly can at apples-to-apples: same time of year, same exact stores,” said Robby Ohmes, Senior Retail Analyst at BofA Securities. “We’re primarily only focused on items that all of these retailers have crossover on. And we try to adjust for pack sizes and weights and things like that to be as comparable of items as possible.”
Roberta Keener said she sees inflation wherever she goes. She’ll buy staple items from a discount store, but then buy her produce and meat from another.
“I know I went to another store to get something, and it was a lot more expensive,” Keener told Channel 9′s Evan Donovan.
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New data from Bank of America backs her up: it found grocery prices on average were up 3% across Charlotte, led by a 4% increase in produce and a 7% increase on dairy, especially eggs.
Zach Maddigan said he knows that all too well.
“Definitely yeah, over the last year for sure. Eggs today were $3.50 alone,” Maddigan told Donovan.
The bank used Walmart as a baseline for the study. On a shared basket of 58 food items plus one household/personal care item, the bank said Aldi’s prices were 12% lower and Lidl’s were 3% lower than Walmart. That gap is basically unchanged from last year’s study.
But their prices are up 4-6% in the past year, which is more than all of the other grocers in the study. Target (0%) and Harris Teeter (2%) had the lowest price increases over last September.
“Aldi and Lidl are deep discounters, and they price below Walmart. But they also have been raising prices faster in our most recent price study in Charlotte than Harris Teeter has been on a percentage basis,” Ohmes said.
On the same basket of goods, BofA found Target prices were just 2% higher than Walmart -- nearly erasing the +12% gap from last year -- followed by Dollar General (+4%), Family Dollar (+15%), Harris Teeter (+17%), Publix (+25%), Whole Foods (+26%), and Sprouts (+37%).
“It’s kind of gotten out of hand, to be honest with you,” Maddigan said. “Going to the grocery store is now easily $100 to $100-plus just for a week’s worth of groceries.”
The price study was based on shelf pricing, so it doesn’t include the savings you get when using store loyalty cards.
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