On May 5, 2011, i visited 7 stores located within easy bicycling distance with the same shopping list. The results are attached in Excel and are also posted in a Google doc at: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApVZWZO2ERtEdGNVaTVDY09TMnBTU2hMQ0xIb3lSX2c&hl=en&authkey=CKi6hpMD. This list is obviously quite idiosyncratic; you might come out with a very different tally depending on what items you buy. For example, i generally buy organic and mostly avoid produce from Mexico and further. The spreadsheet addresses price only, there are no comments on quality of produce, service, or other factors that might affect shopping preferences.

There are 5 tabs in the spreadsheet:
#1 lists the raw data with sale prices
#2 is the same as #1 but with regular prices only, no special sales (except on produce, where there is no standard pricing)
#3 does a direct comparison across only the items which were carried in at least 6 of the 7 stores, and totals up a hypothetical shopping trip using regular prices
#4 does the same shopping trip as #3 except with sale prices instead of regular prices
#5 starts to look at category tallies

The results of tab #3 for my shopping list are:
Growers $169.73
Sundance $179.29
Kiva $182.82
Capella's $185.62
Friendly St. $189.87
Market of Choice Franklin $208.71
Market of Choice 29th $209.94

Growers Market, located right by the train station, clearly comes out ahead in terms of price. And that is without factoring in an additional 15% discount that you can get by volunteering 30 minutes a week (while regular help is appreciated there, i often rack up a bunch of volunteer credits by helping at the annual inventory, which counts for double credit). Growers is a quirky, DIY kind of place: open odd hours and often out of basic items. But if they have what you want and you can get there at the right times, it is really worth it - plus the people are very friendly. Orientations for newcomers are held Tuesdays 5:30pm, Thursdays 1:30pm, and Fridays 4:30pm; the website is http://growersmarket.net.

Sundance, Kiva, Capella's, and Friendly St. cover about a $10 spread. And Market of Choice comes in significantly higher than any of them. Someone also pointed out to me that shoppers over age 65 receive 10% at Capella's on non-sale items.

When conducting the same shopping trip but using sale prices instead of regular prices (tab #4), the order comes out the same, with a more noticeable gap between Sundance/Kiva/Capella's vs. Friendly St.:
Growers $169.73
Sundance $177.69
Kiva $178.74
Capella's $179.08
Friendly St. $186.61
MoC-Franklin $206.52
MoC - 29th $207.05

Tab #5 shows where Grower's advantage lies: it's in the produce (71% of Market of Choice's prices) and in the bulk items (69% of Market of Choice's price for dry goods, 81% for liquids). For the few canned items on my shopping list, Market of Choice is cheaper than Grower's (83% of Grower's price).

There are obviously many factors that affect where to shop and if you someone who keeps a careful eye out for sales you can score some real deals. On my list, it's clear that rice milk is often used by stores as a "loss leader" (an item deliberately priced very low, sometimes even below cost, in order to attract people into the store who then buy other items too). Then again, Sundance nudged ahead of some others by having better standard prices on some staples such as olive oil and tamari.

Anyway, i hope everyone out there is eating happily. And of course, the best way to nourish yourself is to forget all this and eat from your garden, your friends' gardens, and what grows naturally around you!

Cheers,

--Tree