In its pursuit of providing consumers with valuable insights into the price of a basket of 20 staple products, The Brief launched a survey on the cheapest supermarket in May 2023, by conducting monthly price comparisons of a standardised grocery basket across major retailers.
The supermarkets that were surveyed for June 2023 were: Shoprite (Independence Avenue), Checkers (Klein Windhoek), Pick n Pay (Wernhil), Spar (Klein Windhoek), OK Foods (Independence Avenue), Woermann Brock (Klein Windhoek), and Choppies (Hyper Khomasdal).
For the month of June, the survey included Food Lover’s Market (Wernhil).
However, responding to the demand for including wholesalers to the survey, The Brief has re-evaluated its approach and now includes wholesalers in its survey.
As a result, adjustments were made to the composition of the grocery basket.
Revised Grocery Basket:
Loaf of Bread
2-litre Nola sunflower oil
5kg Top score maize meal
2.5kg Marathon sugar (white sugar)
1.5kg Real Good Chicken
1kg Beef stew
2kg Mamas rice
3kg Pasta Polana Macaroni
1-litre Nammilk full cream milk
9 Twinsaver toilet paper (350 sheets)
700ml Wellington tomato sauce
2kg Sunlight Washing powder
750ml Sunlight Dishwashing liquid
500g Rama butter
18 Waldschmidt eggs (medium)
150g Protex bar soap
100ml Toothpaste Colgate
1kg Onions
1kg Potatoes
1kg Tomatoes
After collecting our data of 20 staples across eight major supermarkets, Checkers emerged as the cheapest supermarket for the month of June 2023, with its basket costing N$950.80, compared to OK Foods which saw the highest cost of the basket at N$1098.80.
Choppies was the second cheapest supermarket with its basket costing N$981.68.
Although Checkers had the cheapest basket overall, Spar had the cheapest 5kg Maize Meal at a cost price of N$68.99 ,whereas Food Lover’s Market had the most expensive 5kg Maize Meal at a cost price of N$94.99.
For a p/kg of Beef Stew, Choppies had the cheapest Beef stew at a cost price of N$74.85 in while Spar had the most expensive Beef stew at a price of N$104.97.
To see which of these supermarkets had the cheapest veggies we combined the prices of 1kg potatoes, 1kg tomatoes, and 1kg onions, and found that Choppies offered the cheapest veggies at a total of N$74.85 for the combination of the three veggies whilst Spar had the most expensive veggies at a price of N$104.97 for the same combination of veggies.
Note: We do not take specials or loyalty card discounts into consideration. When we do find certain goods on special, for example, “Get N$10.00 off when buying 18 (medium) eggs and pay N$55.00”, we will log the price as N$65.00 to exclude the special.
June 2023 alternatives
Food Lover’s Market – 2kg Tastic Rice, 1.5 kg Chicken (an average was calculated because they do not stock 1.5kg of chicken), 9’s toilet papers (store brand)
Spar – 2L Cooking Oil (store brand), 2kg Rice (store brand)
Choppies – 2kg Rice (store brand)
