2:19p.m. 6th August 2008

| Staff reporters and AAP

Sunshine Coast residents struggling with the rising cost of living can take some comfort from the news that we apparently have the cheapest groceries in the country.

A new federal government website launched today, www.GROCERYchoice.gov.au, enables consumers to compare the cost of a basket of selected groceries from supermarkets in 61 regions across the country.

And according to an analysis by The Australian newspaper, the Sunshine Coast region (including Noosa, Maroochydore and Caloundra) is the cheapest in the nation.

A combined basket of meat/seafood, fruit, vegetables, dairy, general groceries and household/personal care items costs $150.41 on average at Coles supermarkets on the Coast, compared with up to $193.48 for the same goods at independent stores in Alice Springs.

The Australian described the Sunshine Coast as a “surprising winner” in the grocery stakes and referred to Noosa as “the preferred playground for millionaire babyboomers in search of a seachange” and “the holiday playground lampooned by Kath and Kim's Prue and Trude”.

The Grocery Choice website fulfils an election promise by the Rudd government and starts a day after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) report of its six-month inquiry into grocery prices was made public.

It sources prices from independent monthly surveys of about 500 products from 600 supermarkets, and will be updated on the first business day of each month. Consumers can access information by nominating a postcode, town or suburb.

An analysis of the website has revealed that Coles supermarkets offer the cheapest basket price in 52 of the 61 regions.

The average Australian household grocery shop on the Sunshine Coast would cost $150.41 at Coles/Bi-Lo; $156.43 at Woolworths/Safeway and $163.11 at independent supermarkets like IGA and others.

The website also provides results for a basic staples basket, which includes a selection of staple grocery products drawn from the other basket categories.

Again, Coles/Bi-Lo was the cheapest on the Coast, with a basket of staples costing $74.81. The same basket costs $77.94 at Woolworths; $79.38 at the independents and $62.13 at ALDI.

IGA chairman Mick Daly has criticised the website’s findings, saying the monthly surveys don’t include like-with-like brands and store comparisons.

“It is unfair to lump the IGA stores into the category of all independents in any one region,” he said.

IGA prices were more competitive than other independent stores, many of which were small volume outlets, he said.

The chain’s Supa IGA stores ran 3,000 to 4,000 specials every day of the week which were not taken into account on the website.

“We will be lobbying the federal government and ACCC to make the survey more accurate for consumers,” Mr Daly said.

How Grocery Choice works:

Basket prices are calculated using the prices of about 500 grocery products that make up a large proportion of the average Australian’s household grocery spend. The prices represent the average weekly basket price for a retailer within a specified region, not the price for a specific individual supermarket outlet.

To calculate the basket prices, each of the 500 products is allocated to one of seven typical grocery baskets. These include: Meat & Seafood, Fruit & Vegetables, Dairy, Breads & Cereals, Drinks & Other Snacks, General Groceries and Household & Personal Care.

Prices for each of the 500 products are collected monthly via an independent survey of approximately 600 supermarkets across Australia. Once collected, a number of quality assurance techniques are applied to the prices data to ensure its accuracy.

Each of the product prices in the basket are then multiplied by an appropriate expenditure weight, reflecting the importance, in terms of average weekly expenditure, of that product compared to all products within the basket. These data are then aggregated by supermarket retailer and region to create the various basket prices.