With Whole Foods cutting prices, is Trader Joe's still cheaper?

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Amazon slashed prices on dozens of items at Whole Foods on Monday, and now many consumers are wondering how the new prices compare to those at the grocery chain's competitor Trader Joe's.

To find an answer, SFGATE visited San Francisco locations of both stores the week of Aug. 28 when Whole Foods introduced its lower prices.

Among the 13 food staples we compared, we found that Trader Joe's was cheaper overall with our bag of groceries costing $39.83. Similar products from Whole Foods came out to $45.17.

Two items — orange juice and bags of organic salad mix — were the same price at both stores. Several staples such as a gallon of organic milk, organic brown eggs and spaghetti were less expensive at Trader Joe's. Avocados were among the few items that were cheaper at Whole Foods than TJs.

Methodology: We looked at Whole Foods groceries with new lower prices as well as some with unchanged prices. We tried to find similar products but in some cases items compared might be slightly different. The $9.99 bottle of extra-virgin, cold-pressed olive at Whole Foods is identified as being unfiltered, while a very similar product of the same size at Trader Joe's is $2 less but not identified as being unfiltered. We focused on the generic store brands at both stores, though in one case we looked at the cost of Cheerios at Whole Foods versus the similar TJs cereal Joe's Os.

The bottom line: We looked at only 13 items, making it difficult to identify the exact price discrepancy between the two stores, but it seems like when it comes to the staples, Whole Foods pricing is becoming competitive but Trader Joe's is still cheaper. And let's not forget the reason many of us end up spending a whole paycheck on Whole Foods shopping trips: It's because we toss that $50 eye serum into the basket or decided to try the glass jar of local, hand-crafted ice cream that costs twice as much as the generic brand.