Aldi vs. Whole Foods, Round 2 (After Amazon Cut Produce Prices)

Whole Foods announced another round of price cuts on April 1, this time claiming to lower everyday prices on hundreds of produce items by an average of 20%.

A side-by-side image shows the storefronts of Aldi and Whole Foods
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Whole Foods announced another round of price cuts on April 1, this time claiming to lower everyday prices on hundreds of produce items by an average of 20%. Since we just compared prices on 50 grocery staples at Aldi and Whole Foods in October – Aldi proved to be a third cheaper than Whole Foods in those price checks – we decided to make fresh comparisons on select items at both supermarkets to see if the Amazon-owned chain would fare better this time around.

Before you have a look at our latest price comparisons from Northern Virginia store locations, it’s important to understand that Amazon is reserving its biggest Whole Foods bargains for its $119-a-year Prime members. A big reason why: 7 out of 10 Prime members reportedly rarely or never shop at Whole Foods.

So while the latest produce price reductions are, indeed, available to all Whole Foods shoppers, even bigger discounts are being offered to Prime members in the form of exclusive deals and an extra 10% off sale items. If you’re already a Prime member but not a Whole Foods shopper, you might be missing out on one of the surprising benefits of Amazon Prime; if you’re not Prime, many of Aldi’s prices remain tough to beat. Judge for yourself.

Bob Niedt
Contributor

Bob was Senior Editor at Kiplinger.com for seven years and is now a contributor to the website. He has more than 40 years of experience in online, print and visual journalism. Bob has worked as an award-winning writer and editor in the Washington, D.C., market as well as at news organizations in New York, Michigan and California. Bob joined Kiplinger in 2016, bringing a wealth of expertise covering retail, entertainment, and money-saving trends and topics. He was one of the first journalists at a daily news organization to aggressively cover retail as a specialty and has been lauded in the retail industry for his expertise. Bob has also been an adjunct and associate professor of print, online and visual journalism at Syracuse University and Ithaca College. He has a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and a bachelor’s degree in communications and theater from Hope College.