TLDR
A tracked basket of 20 Woolworths grocery items rose $18.13 to $232.02 between March 2025 and July 2026, an 8.5 per cent increase that is more than double the official food inflation rate of 3.2 per cent. The ACCC gained new excessive-pricing powers over the major supermarkets from 1 July 2026.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The gap between the shelf and the headline number
Official inflation figures say grocery prices are cooling. The shopping trolley tells a different story. A tracked basket of 20 identical Woolworths items cost $232.02 in July 2026, up from $213.89 in March 2025, a rise of $18.13 or 8.5 per cent.[1] The Australian Bureau of Statistics put food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation at 3.2 per cent over the same window.[2]
The ABS measures a broad, weighted index across thousands of products and retailers. A consistent basket at a single chain captures something the index cannot: the cumulative price movement a loyal Woolworths shopper actually faces at the checkout.
What the chain says versus what the data shows
Woolworths told the ASX in April 2026 that average prices excluding tobacco fell 1.0 per cent year on year in its third quarter, driven by price investments and promotions.[4] The internal framing and the basket tracking point in opposite directions, and which products sit inside the promotional window shapes everything.
University of Sydney retail academic researcher Lisa Asher said the pressure falls hardest on workers whose pay has not kept pace. "Wages are not catching up and, as a result, you're really feeling the pinch when you get to the check-out," Asher said.[1]
How households are adapting
Canstar spokesperson Eden Radford said shoppers are adjusting their habits in measurable ways. "They're doing things like bulk buying, going frozen where they can, shopping around, and even doing things like replacing meat with things like lentils," Radford said.[1]
The regulator watching from 1 July
From 1 July 2026 the ACCC holds powers to monitor Coles and Woolworths for excessive pricing under the new Food and Grocery Code prohibition.[3] The ACCC's supermarkets inquiry interim report, released in September 2024, had already documented pricing and competition concerns across the major chains.[5]
The ACCC's monitoring programme is the first formal test of the excessive-pricing prohibition, and both chains are now inside its scope. The next round of basket tracking will show whether the new powers move shelf prices at all.
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How was the Woolworths basket calculated?
Why does the basket result differ from official food inflation?
What can the ACCC actually do under the new excessive-pricing rules?
Vikram Singh writes about banking. He follows where money actually moves, from the strategy set in head office to what changes on a customer's phone.
