Is Kowalski’s Quality Worth the Price? A Checkbook Survey Shows Minnesotans Both Sides
Your grocery list may not change from store to store, but the total does.
A price survey of Twin Cities stores found one local grocery chain charged the most of all.
Here’s how far above average Kowalski’s prices ran, and where the other stores Minnesotans shop at landed.
How Checkbook Priced the Stores
Kowalski’s 19% premium comes from Consumers’ Checkbook, whose researchers shopped stores with a 150-item list to compare prices.
The report covers the Twin Cities area, so don’t read its numbers as a statewide price.
It rates 23 grocery stores and delivery services in the Twin Cities area, and its article prints percentages for only some of them.
The page is labeled last updated November 2025, so these figures are a snapshot, not a promise about today’s receipt.
Many of the percentages here are measured against the all-store average, the average of the prices at all the stores it surveyed.
Its Walmart figure is measured against the average at all other stores it surveyed.
We doubt any store wins on every item, and a 150-item list can’t show how your usual aisles compare.
Where Kowalski’s Landed
Kowalski’s prices were the highest among the stores surveyed, 19% above the all-store average.
Kowalski’s has 11 stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Twin Cities households spent an average of $6,273 a year on food at home in 2023-24, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If you bought all your groceries at Kowalski’s and your bill at the all-store average were $6,273, its prices would add roughly $1,190 a year.
That’s about $23 a week, or roughly $99 a month.
At the average, a $6,273 year works out to about $121 a week, and at Kowalski’s prices it would be about $144.
That’s a what-if, and your total depends on what you buy and where, but we think $23 a week is easier to weigh than 19%.
Other Stores Above Average
Kowalski’s wasn’t the only store priced above the all-store average in the survey.
Lunds & Byerlys’ prices were about 11% higher than average.
Whole Foods ran about 9% above the average, and Fresh Thyme about 4%.
On that same $6,273 bill, Lunds & Byerlys’ 11% would add about $690 a year.
That’s about $13 a week, against about $23 at Kowalski’s, and roughly $500 a year less than Kowalski’s premium would add.
On that bill, Whole Foods’ 9% would add about $565 a year and Fresh Thyme’s 4% about $251.
Kowalski’s 19% Next to Lunds & Byerlys’ 11%
If both figures use the same average, Kowalski’s would be roughly 7% pricier than Lunds & Byerlys, not 19%.
The 19% shows how far a store sits from the survey average, not from the cheapest store you could find.
Stores Below Average
At the other end of the list, ALDI’s prices were 41% below the all-store average.
Walmart came in about 21% lower than the average at all other stores surveyed, Trader Joe’s about 17% lower than the all-store average, and Target about 13% lower.
On a list that costs $100 at the all-store average, those percentages would put the total near $83 at Trader Joe’s and $87 at Target.
On the same $6,273 bill, 17% below the average would be about $1,066 less at Trader Joe’s and 13% below about $815 less at Target.
Checkbook says ALDI, like Trader Joe’s, carries mostly store brands, so it used a modified market basket to compare them with conventional supermarkets.
So we’d treat any math that stacks ALDI’s 41% against Kowalski’s 19% as a rough guide.
ALDI’s selection of national brands is limited, so your usual labels may not be on the shelf.
Psst! How much do you know about grocery prices? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
Quiz
Grocery Price IQ
Answer these questions on grocery prices and the stores behind them. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
A half-gallon tub of ice cream shrinks from 64 ounces to 60 ounces, and the price stays $5.99. How does the Consumer Price Index count that?
Checkbook's Quality Ratings
Kowalski's also appears in the quality half of Checkbook's report, which comes from surveyed Checkbook and Consumer Reports local subscribers rather than a shopping list.
It gives the share of surveyed customers who rated each store "superior" for overall quality.
Those subscribers rated Kowalski's and Lunds & Byerlys highly for quality, and both charge steep prices.
Kowalski's is also among the best-ranked stores for quality, alongside Lunds & Byerlys, Almsted's Fresh Market and several local co-ops.
Quality is a separate measure from price, so we'd read the 19% and the quality ratings side by side rather than as one score.
The Range of Results
Among the overall price percentages against the all-store average, Checkbook's range runs from ALDI's 41% below to Kowalski's 19% above.
Walmart, Trader Joe's and Target sit below the average, while Lunds & Byerlys, Whole Foods and Fresh Thyme sit above it.
Where your cart lands in that range depends on what you buy and where you buy it.
On a list that costs $100 at the all-store average, that works out to about $59 at ALDI and about $119 at Kowalski's.
That's a $60 spread, roughly double from bottom to top, though the modified basket used for ALDI makes it a rough comparison.
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