How do Trader Joe’s, ALDI’s, and Lidl’s Prices Compare?
Last updated November 2022
German-based discounters ALDI and Lidl, ubiquitous in most of western Europe, continue to expand their U.S. footprints. Like Trader Joe’s, which is also a German-owned operation, these alt-grocers carry mostly their own brands, rather than national-brand products.
ALDI and Lidl focus on low costs, and our survey found their prices to be astonishingly inexpensive—cheaper even than Walmart and warehouse clubs. Trader Joe’s also offers lower prices than most supermarket chains, while earning mostly high accolades from its customers.
Since the market basket we used for our price survey largely consists of national-brand products, and since these three companies offer mainly their own brands, we couldn’t compare their prices using our standard price survey. Instead, we had to shop each using a special survey that included the same fresh produce, meats, and dairy items in our standard survey, comparing the national-brand items on our list with the prices of these unique stores’ own brands. (When comparing prices, we used per-unit pricing—for example, price per ounce.)
Overall, we found Trader Joe’s prices were typically 10 to 20 percent lower than the average prices we found at most other surveyed stores.
We also shopped ALDI and Lidl using the same method we used to compare Trader Joe’s prices. Each had prices that were usually an astonishing 40 to 50 percent lower than most other grocery stores'. But these savings come with a downside: ALDI and Lidl were rated middle-of-the-pack on many aspects of quality—but about the same or better than many of the largest chains like Safeway, Target, and Walmart.
Unfortunately, many shoppers at these unique chains will also have to shop at conventional supermarkets: Each carried fewer than half of the items in our market basket.
