The Same Grocery Cart Costs Wisconsin Shoppers Nearly Double at Some Stores

Groceries are expensive enough without paying more than you need to.

A price check at stores around Milwaukee found the same everyday list ringing up for very different totals, depending on the door you walked through.

Here’s how the carts stacked up for Wisconsinites, from the priciest to the cheapest.

Who Ran the Price Check and How

This cart comes from a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel price check. The paper tracks prices at 13 area stores every month.

The stores range from national chains to a neighborhood cooperative.

For the June 1 round, the reporters compared the new totals with the January 2026 totals.

The list has 18 everyday items.

It includes a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon, a box of Cheerios and a box of Cheez-Its.

It’s a plain list.

Every store priced the same items, so you can compare the totals side by side.

The totals leave out limited-time deals and discounts. So a sale at your store won’t show up in them.

Aldi carries different brands than the other stores. Per the Journal Sentinel, equivalents were substituted when necessary.

Here are the Milwaukee-area stores, from the priciest cart to the cheapest.

The Priciest Carts

The priciest cart was at Outpost, the cooperative on East Capitol Drive. The list totaled $94.52 on June 1.

Festival Foods in West Allis came in a close second at $93.18, only $1.34 below Outpost.

Metcalfe’s Market in Wauwatosa rang up the list at $89.22. At El Rey Family Market on West Oklahoma Avenue, you’d pay $87.79.

Metcalfe’s prices fell more than $2.50 between January and June, yet the total still landed near $89.

At El Rey, the total fell from $88.49 to $87.79, a drop of 70 cents.

If you shop at any of these four stores, you pay at least $87.79 for the list.

That’s a lot for a list with eggs, bacon and Cheerios on it.

The Middle of the Pack

Five more stores priced the same cart between $74 and $84.

Whole Foods on North Prospect Avenue came in at $83.72.

That’s up $2.10 from $81.62, the biggest jump of any store since January.

Sendik’s Food Market in Wauwatosa rang up $82.54, after its total dropped a little over $2.

The list totaled $80.43 at the Pick ‘n Save on East Garfield Avenue and $80.41 at Piggly Wiggly on West Oklahoma Avenue.

That gap is two cents.

If you shop at either store, you’ll pay nearly the same for this list.

Meijer in Wauwatosa came in lower at $74.29, up 25 cents since January.

Meijer’s total sits $25.50 above Aldi’s. That’s about 52% more for the same list.

Put another way, a cart that costs $100 at Aldi would cost about $152 at Meijer.

The Cheaper Carts

Want a cheaper cart?

Three stores priced it lower.

Walmart in West Milwaukee totaled $69.39, up 63 cents from $68.76 in January.

Target on South Chase Avenue came in at $69.81, the same as six months earlier.

That puts Walmart 42 cents under Target.

Woodman’s in Oak Creek rang up $66.20, down from $67.22 in January. Its total works out to about 1.36 times the Aldi total.

That’s the smallest gap of any store above Aldi.

If you shop at Woodman’s, you pay $28.32 less than an Outpost shopper pays for the same list.

One store beat them all.

The Cheapest Cart

Aldi’s total was $48.79 on June 1, the lowest of all 13 stores.

Outpost’s list cost $94.52 the same day.

That’s a gap of $45.73.

If you bought this list once a month, the gap would add up to about $549 a year.

The two stores sit on the same street.

Outpost is at 100 East Capitol Drive, and Aldi is at 225 East Capitol Drive.

Across 18 items, Aldi’s total averages about $2.71 an item. Outpost’s works out to about $5.25.

Aldi’s total rose 47 cents since January, from $48.32.

Even if you shop at Woodman’s, the next-cheapest store at $66.20, you’d pay $17.41 more than at Aldi.

Six Months Earlier

In January, the same cart cost $102.12 at Outpost and $48.32 at Aldi.

That’s more than double.

By June 1, the gap had shrunk from $53.80 to $45.73. Outpost’s total had dropped $7.60, and Aldi’s had risen 47 cents.

The Journal Sentinel credits big drops in egg and butter prices for trimming Outpost’s total by around 7%.

Prices at many of the 13 stores stayed largely steady since January, the paper found.

So if you priced this list in January, you’d have seen a wider gap than the one on June 1.

Bacon and Egg Price Gaps

Inside the same cart, a pound of Oscar Mayer bacon had fallen by June to $5.99 at Woodman's, $7.99 at Piggly Wiggly and $8.99 at Sendik's.

That's a $3 gap.

If you buy your bacon at Sendik's, you're paying $3 more than a Woodman's shopper for the same brand and size.

Prices fell at all three since January. Sendik's bacon dropped $2, from $10.99.

Piggly Wiggly's fell $1.80, from $9.79.

Woodman's fell $1, from $6.99.