Idaho’s Cheapest Groceries Found At This Unexpected Store

You know you’ve become a real adult when you can say with absolute certainty that you have a favorite grocery store. I bet that if we asked you to list the reasons why that store is your go to store, you probably could rattle off a few. 

For example, I’ve lived in Southeast Boise for 15 years. The Albertsons on Parkcenter has been my go-to store since I moved here. I absolutely love the people who work at that store and look forward to chatting with them when I’m going through checkout. The selection at their meat and seafood counter is excellent. I only fill-up at the gas station at that store because they’ve often got the lowest prices in town. 

READ MORE: The BEST Grocery Store in America Has Only Three Idaho Locations

And most importantly? It’s on my way home. Trust me, I know that I could probably save some money by shopping elsewhere but when you regularly work 60 hours? Sometimes you trade value for convenience. Being a dual income, no kids family, that’s a luxury my husband and I get to enjoy. 

New Study Ranks Idaho's Cheapest Grocery Store

However, for thousands of Idaho families setting and sticking to a grocery budget is a must. That’s getting harder to do as prices of just about everything continue to climb. It’s also why NetCredit decided to put together a list of the most affordable grocery stores in every state and quite frankly? I was a bit surprised how things played out in Idaho! 

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In order to put together the list, they put together a list of items from major brands available at more than 2,000 stores across the United States. They used Instacart to check prices at grocery stores delivering to each state's most populated ZIP code.

Once they did that, they averaged out the price per item at every chain in the state and compared them to the average across all chains in each state. 

After crunching the numbers in Idaho, Grocery Outlet came out on top with prices more than 29% lower than other options. Grocery Outlet recently ranked as the #2 cheapest grocery store in America in a similar study conducted by U.S. News & World Report, so that’s not what surprised me. 

What made me do a double take was Target landing second for cheapest groceries in Idaho. According to NetCredit, Target’s prices were almost 13% cheaper than the state average. 

Here’s a look at the rest of the rankings:

#3 Fred Meyer (11.78% cheaper than state average)

#4 Family Dollar (3.16% cheaper than state average)

#5 Ridley’s (2.3% cheaper than state average)

#6 Albertsons (8.68% more expensive than state average)

#7 Jacksons Food Stores (36.63% more expensive than state average)

Where’s WinCo?

I wondered the same thing. After looking at NetCredit’s methodology, I went to see if WinCo was available through Instacart in the Boise area. It was not, which is why the notoriously cheap, Idaho-based grocery chain was NOT part of the list. Walmart isn't on Instacart either.