How to do Your Grocery Shopping on a Budget

The ACCC’s Supermarkets Inquiry Final Report, published in February 2025, found that the price of a typical basket of groceries has increased by more than 20% in the past five years. Some categories have been hit especially hard, with oils and fats up 49%, eggs up 47%, milk up 34%, cheese up 33%, and bread up 32% since 2019.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose 3.1% in the year to February 2026, contributing significantly to the overall Consumer Price Index increase of 3.7%. Within food, meat and seafood prices rose 4.5%, driven by beef and veal (+13.5%) and lamb and goat (+12.9%) due to strong overseas demand for Australian red meat.

The ACCC also found that the majority of respondents in low-income households are now spending more than 20% of their net income on groceries, and that consumers are losing trust in supermarkets’ sale price claims. With Woolworths holding 38% and Coles 29% of national supermarket grocery sales, the inquiry described the market as an oligopolistic structure with limited incentive for the two major chains to compete vigorously on price.