Coles leaps in as Woolworths drops price of more than 400 items: When you can get cheaper groceries

Australian shoppers battling the rising cost of living win again as Coles leaps in to undercut Woolworths after the supermarket giant announced the price of more than 400 items were being dropped.

Woolworths said there was $620 worth of savings for Australian shoppers across the 400 items, including fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and seafood, pantry staples, and household-cleaning items. Sausages were the headliner, dropping 600 gram packs by almost 30 per cent to $5 - the “lowest price on individual packs since 2019”.

When approached by Yahoo Finance, Coles said it would also drop the price of their 550g pack of sausages from $6.60 to $4.50 and 560g of Simply sausages from $6.50 to $4.60.

That puts them at $7 per kilogram, while Woolworths, which made the first announcement, is now at the higher figure of $8.33 per kilogram.

Woolworths store front.
Woolworths has announced its dropping the price of 400 items, as shoppers benefit from an inflationary drop in vegetable prices.

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The spokeswoman said the price of 600 products would be dropped from Wednesday, the same as Woolworths, but that they had only been locked in until at least January 2. Woolworths said its 400 products would remain at lower prices until February 27 next year.

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Outside the ‘price drop’ promotions, the cost of vegetables is trending downward and shoppers are starting to reap the benefits. Woolworths said the cost of some items - like vine-ripened tomatoes, quarter-cut red and savoy cabbages, blueberries and five packs of avocados are about 40 per cent cheaper than October last year.

“Some of the highlights across categories of vegetables include tomatoes, sweetcorn, and capsicums (all down by 20 per cent, on average, compared to last year),” Woolworths said.

“While for fruit, blueberries and avocados as a whole are down an average 35 per cent compared to last year. Looking ahead, summer fruits - including cherries and stone fruit - are set to be in abundance, which means better pricing. Mangoes are also currently great value, starting from $2.50 for Calypso mangoes from Wednesday.”

Coles said it had also been able to reduce the price of vegetables with deflation, including corn (-37 per cent), capsicum and zucchini (both -30 per cent) and eggplant (-20 per cent).

“Our stonefruit and cherry season is looking very strong with this week's forecasted wet weather the watch out,” the Coles spokeswoman told Yahoo Finance.