Same 4 Groceries, Very Different Totals at Utah Stores This Winter

Milk, eggs, bread or beef: Which one do you think swings a grocery total the most?

A Utah TV station tracked all four last winter, and the answer may not be the one you’d guess.

Here’s how the receipts stacked up for Utah shoppers.

The Four-Item Check

KUTV, a Utah TV station, runs a price-check series.

Each Monday, it buys the same four staples: milk, eggs, bread and beef.

Reporter Jim Spiewak launched the series with a Smith’s report on November 25, 2025.

KUTV called the January 5 check week six.

The goal is to see how prices compare week to week and store to store.

Each report lists the prices and a total after tax, so you can see where the money goes.

Think of it as a snapshot.

Each total is one basket on one trip, and your cart will land somewhere else.

Smith’s Opening Total

KUTV’s first check at Smith’s came to $16.72 after tax.

Milk was $3.29 a gallon for the store brand. You’d have paid the same for whole, 2% or skim.

A dozen Smith’s-brand eggs cost $2.09.

Bread was the wild card.

Options ran from $1.20 to $6.99, and KUTV picked Wonder Bread at $3.49.

That’s a wide shelf.

Your loaf choice alone could swing a receipt by more than $5.

The beef was a bone-in New York strip of 0.6 pounds.

Harmons and Trader Joe’s

Harmons came in at $25.14 in KUTV’s check from the week of December 8, 2025.

That’s $8.42 above the opening Smith’s total.

The January write-up also describes a $20.50 trip to Trader Joe’s from a few weeks earlier.

It doesn’t name the week.

That’s $3.78 above the opening Smith’s total, and $4.64 below Harmons.

Neither beat the first receipt.

Don’t read those gaps as a ranking, though.

These baskets came from different weeks, and each of those stores got just one trip.

Smith’s Second Trip

KUTV went back to Smith’s the week of January 5, 2026. This time the total came to $22.34 after tax.

That’s $5.62 above the opening visit.

Bread cost a bit more.

Wonder Bread was $3.69 a loaf, 20 cents more than at Smith’s in November.

A $3.24 loaf on an earlier trip is another point of comparison.

A 20-cent jump sounds small.

But if you buy one loaf a week, it adds up to about $10 over a year.

Milk went the other way.

A gallon cost $1.44, a sale price because of its shorter expiration date.

Eggs stayed at $2.09 a dozen, the same as in November.

So the total rose $5.62 even though milk fell $1.85. The biggest swings tie to beef, which the last sections cover.

KUTV’s write-up says it will keep watching whether the higher bread price sticks.

Its takeaway is to watch for meat deals and not ignore in-app coupons.

So check your store’s app before you shop.

Totals From Different Weeks

The totals in KUTV’s series come from different weeks, so they aren’t a same-day race.

Milk at $1.44 was a sale price at Smith’s. It says little about a gallon on a regular day.

Beef changed between visits, too.

In January, prices were reported for both ground beef and a New York strip.

November’s purchase was a single strip.

The $22.34 sat between the $20.50 and the $25.14.

Line up the four totals, and they run $16.72, $20.50, $22.34 and $25.14.

That’s a spread of $8.42.

But the two Smith’s totals alone are $5.62 apart.

So if you compare receipts across stores, match the week and the cut of beef first.

Then your numbers will mean more.

A Bigger Steak

KUTV’s second report, published December 2, 2025, was on a national chain. It beat Smith’s prices on milk, eggs and bread.

Milk was $2.82, eggs were $1.97 and Wonder Bread was $2.92. Each was below the Smith’s price from the week before.

Even so, the total came to $20.63. That’s $3.91 above the Smith’s total.

The steak made the difference.

That week’s 1.1-pound bone-in New York strip cost $12.32 after a $3.25 markdown.

At Smith’s, a 0.6-pound steak cost about $6.75.

So before you credit a store for a low receipt, check the weight of the steak.

Beef Moves the Total

Beef drives the swings in KUTV’s four staples.

It was once again the most expensive item that week.

At Smith’s in November, KUTV found cuts from $10 a pound for top round to $23 for tenderloin.

Rib-eye was $17 a pound that day. The bone-in New York strip was $18 a pound.

The 0.6-pound steak was about $10. A $3.25 member discount took it to $6.75.

In January, a 0.65-pound strip cost $4.48.

That works out to about $6.90 a pound, which is under half of November’s $18.

That’s a big drop.

Ground beef at Smith’s ran about $5 a pound that week, down from about $7 on the earlier trip to WinCo.

Say you buy a two-pound package. That gap would show up as $4 on your receipt.

A Gardner Policy Institute report put Utah’s ground beef at an all-time high of $6.32 a pound in August 2025.