Price basket – Checkers beats Pick n Pay and Woolworths
Daily Investor created a basket of ingredients for a South African breakfast and compared the online prices at Checkers, Shoprite, Pick n Pay and Woolworths.
Checkers and Shoprite, owned by the same parent company Shoprite Holdings, performed the best. Woolworths was the most expensive.
The basket contained.
- 2.5kg Iwisa Super Maize Meal
- 2.5kg Selati Pure White Sugar
- 1kg Cerebos Iodated Table Salt
- 2-litre Sunfoil Canola Oil or store-brand
- 2-litre Douglasdale full-cream milk or store-brand
- 18-pack large eggs store brand
- 1kg Tomatoes
- 1kg Brown Onions
- 700g loaf of Sasko Premium Sliced White Bread or store-brand
- 700g loaf of Sasko Premium Sliced Brown bread or store-brand
- 450g Rhodes Superfine Apricot Jam or store-brand
- 500g Flora 50% Regular Fat Spread
- 200g Nescafé Classic Instant Coffee
- 20 Pack Freshpak Pure Rooibos Tagless Teabags
- Rooikrantz Thick Boerewors per kg or store-brand
- 200g Streaky Bacon
- 1kg Jungle Oats Original Porridge
The three most expensive items in the basket were the boerewors, coffee, and cooking oil. The brown bread, white bread, and salt were the least expensive ingredients.
All ingredients came to R778.33 at Checkers, while Shoprite rang in at R778.83.
Shoprite is the company’s “core price-fighting brand” aimed at customers in the mass middle-income market. Shoprite is the biggest retailer in South Africa, with a strong footprint in the rest of Africa.
On the other hand, Checkers serves “more affluent customers who prioritise convenience, quality and freshness”.
Pick n Pay’s prices were in the medium range, with the basket coming to R831.44 – around R50 more expensive than Checkers and R50 cheaper than Woolworths.
Pick n Pay describes itself as “an inclusive brand, welcoming all customers – from the most to the least affluent in society”.
Woolworths was the most expensive retailer in this comparison, with the breakfast basket totalling R881.82. The company sells primarily private-label products, sometimes with a higher price tag than common brand names.
