Choppies emerged the cheapest supermarket among Windhoek’s eight popular grocery supermarkets for February, offering the cheapest basket of standardised groceries.
This is according to The Brief’smonthly grocery basket comparison that started in May 2023. The survey aims to provide consumers with valuable insights into the price of a basket of 20 standardised grocery products across eight supermarkets.
Our grocery basket comprises:
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
1kg Sunlight Washing powder
750ml Sunlight dishwashing liquid
500g Rama Butter
18 Waldschmidt eggs (medium)
150g Protex bar soap
100ml Colgate toothpaste
1kg Onions
1kg Potatoes
1kg Tomatoes
For the month of February 2024, Choppies basket stood out as having a cost-effective offering. Yet again securing its position as the most affordable supermarket in Windhoek.
Choppies basket exhibited an increase of 2.83% from an overall basket composition of N$923.07 recorded in January 2024 to N$949.22, in February 2024.
The slight increase notably emanates from the price of its beef stew p/kg from N$82.99 to N$84.99, washing powder item from N$64.99 to N$68.99 and potatoes from N$14.95 to N$19.99.
Inversely, Woermann Brock Fresh showed a higher basket cost of N$1,016.8 from N$1,019.8 representing a 0.29% decrease from the month-on-month.
The decrease notably emanates from its Protex bar soap, whose price dropped from N$19.99 to N$16.99. Though the overall basket composition saw a decrease, items such as their Top Score maize meal increased from N$66.99 to N$81.99, Macaroni Pasata Polana from N$79.99 to N$97.99.
This represents the trend in retailers, where they increase some items while significantly decreasing others. Which gives an illusion of basket decreasing.
Food Lovers Market, Shoprite, Pick ‘n Pay and Checkers demonstrated an overall basket decrease of 3.75%, 5.32%, 7.21%, 1.31% respectively. Conversely, OK Foods and Spar all demonstrated overall basket composition increases of 1.14%, 1.01% respectively.
In the broader economic context, inflation stood at 5% in February, a decrease from 6.4% in January 2024. This represents a general decrease in the price of commodities and it is observable within the decreased overall basket of five of the retail stores in the survey.
Note: We do not take specials or loyalty card discounts into consideration. When we find certain goods on special, for example, “Get N$10 off when buying 18 (medium) eggs and pay N$55”, we will log the price as N$65.00 to exclude the special.
February’s 2024 alternatives
Food Lover’s Market – 2kg Nice Rice, 1.5kg chicken (an average was calculated because they do not stock 1.5kg of chicken), 9s toilet paper (Baby soft)
Spar – 2L oil (Spar brand), Nice Rice,
OK Foods: Nice Rice
Pick ‘n Pay: Nice Rice
Choppies – 2kg rice (Nice Rice), Excella Cooking Oil
Commodity Spotlight: Eggs (Welschmeit) 30s
Each month, The Brief conducts a survey of 20 standardised items in eight supermarkets in Windhoek. The Brief will now spotlight a commodity from the basket of items to assess the price movement and average on the data collected over the months. The commodity to be chosen will be done randomly.
For February 2024, the eggs (Welschmeit) 18s item was chosen.
Choppies demonstrated a cost-effective price for the eggs at an average of N$54.21 over the nine month period of the survey. The price trajectory started off at N$55.99 in June 2023 and remained at N$53.99 from July 2023 to February 2024.
In contrast, Ok Foods illustrated a higher price for the eggs at an average of N$63.99. The price started at N$63.99 in June 2023 and remained constant until September 2023, it dropped significantly to N$59.99 in October 2023, and it remained steady at N$60.00 in November 2023 to February 2024.
Checkers and Shoprite followed Choppies in having an economical average price for the eggs, which stood at N$57.54 and N$57.21 respectively.
Spar and Woermann Brock followed with an economical price averaging at N$58.65 and N$58.16 respectively. Lastly, Pick ‘n Pay exhibited a higher price second to OK Foods with an average of N$60.77.
Due to Food Lover’s Market not offering the medium eggs an average for each month is adopted.
