The Outlier’s grocery basket: April 2023

This month we have eight stores on our comparison list with the addition of Boxer Superstores and Makro. The rest of the stores remain the same – Shoprite, Checkers, Pick n Pay, Spar, Food Lover’s Market and Woolworths.

Items in our grocery basket

There are nine items on our shopping list

  • 700g loaf of Albany Superior Sliced White Bread, or store brand
  • 2-litre store brand sunflower oil
  • 2.5kg Iwisa maize meal
  • 2.5kg Selati white sugar
  • 2-litre store brand milk
  • 2kg Tastic rice
  • 2.5kg Snowflake cake flour
  • 175g bar of Dettol Herbal Soap
  • 9-pack of 2-ply toilet paper, average price over all brands

If some brands aren’t available, alternatives are used, but our aim is to keep the products as consistent as possible every month. For a breakdown of our methodology, click here.

April’s basket

A few weeks ago Makro and Boxer Superstores approached us and asked to be added to our list, so this month we took them up on the offer. New entrant Makro was the only store with a basket total below the R400 mark. Boxer Superstore was the third cheapest.

Bar chart showing April prices
This month we’ve added two new outlets to the list: Makro and Boxer

We have been collecting these grocery prices since mid-2022

Line chart of prices
In the meantime, these are the running prices for the main retailers from August 2022 until this month. The chart leaves out prices from June and July 2022 when we adjusted the quantities

Notebook

Additional data collection by Gemma Ritchie, Mamaili Mamaila and Laura Grant

*This post was edited on 29 June 2023 to update editorial style. No material changes were made