Adelaide mum exposes shocking price rise on everyday items

One woman has exposed the shocking price increases sweeping through supermarkets.

Supermarket shopping has become a dreaded experience for many Australians as they contend with the cost of living crisis and try to work out how to feed their families and themselves without blowing the budget.

Prices of some items have creeped up by 33 per cent in the last 18 months at Woolworths alone, according to Nabula Brdar, founder of social media platform and app Supermarket Swap.

Since December 2021, Ms Brdar and her team have diligently added the prices of more than 2000 items into the app week-by-week in a bid to help their customers find additive-free products at low prices.

Nabula is the woman behind Supermarket Swap. Picture: Meaghan Coles/Now and Then Photography

In a video posted online, she shows how a pack of Woolworth’s Macro Original Corn Chips now costs $3.30 but was priced at $2.50 this time last year - an increase of 31 per cent - and has sat at the increased price since February 2023.

It also shows how a 500g pack of Woolworth’s tasty cheese slices, which was priced at $6.50 in December 2022, now costs $8.90 - an increase of almost 37 per cent. Although, since the video was filmed that price has dropped to $8.40.

“We started thinking ‘wow, this is really interesting to see’,” Ms Brdar told news.com.au, adding it was not only the increases they found intriguing - but also the new guarantees supermarkets had started to use, such as locked prices.

“The items we all know [have risen most] in Australia are items such as dairy and that’s obviously because of the increases in industry that have been passed through the supermarket,” she said.

“Things we expected [have gone up] in that category, especially cheese and milk.”

Frozen goods were the category that had most increased in price, followed by meat and seafood, dairy, eggs and fridge, pantry and drinks.

However, overall, food and grocery inflation – which sits at 4.8 per cent – is still lower than the headline inflation rate of 5.4 per cent.

Tasty Cheese slices have shot up in price from $6.50 to $8.90. Picture: TikTok/@supermarket.swap

“As we start to see the rate of inflation ease, we will continue to focus on delivering savings to our customers,” a Woolworths spokesperson told news.com.au.

“We know Australians are feeling the strain of cost of living and we are working to deliver relief in their weekly grocery shop, with dropped prices on hundreds of products and more than 6,000 specials every week.

“We’ve recently reduced the price of our Tasty Cheese slices by 50 cents.

“We are committed to offering our customers value while working with our suppliers to sensitively manage economy-wide pressures.”

And, while Coles wasn’t specifically mentioned in the video, inflation is something that impacts all businesses and consumers.

“We are working hard to keep prices affordable for Australian households. At Coles, we believe all Australians should be able to put quality food on the table at a good price – particularly as they face high cost of living pressures,” a spokesperson from the supermarket told news.com.au.

“Our costs have increased due to inflation – construction costs, energy prices, logistics, packaging and other costs have all risen. Many suppliers are increasing their prices because they too are dealing with inflationary pressures to produce the products we sell in our supermarkets. All of these factors affect the price customers see at the checkout.

Woolworths’ Macro Corn Chips have risen in price although it’s remained steady. Picture:TikTok/@supermarket.swap

“For the July to September quarter, price inflation in Coles’ supermarkets declined to 3.1 per cent, down from 5.8 per cent the previous quarter. Fresh food – including produce, meat, deli and seafood – was in deflation at 2.3 per cent.

“Coles profit margin last financial year was 2.6 per cent. This means that for every $100 customers spend in our stores, Coles makes $2.60 profit. These profit margins have remained consistent since the 2020 financial year.”

Ms Brdar was inspired to start Supermarket Swap after becoming a mum for the first time. Shs says that although she’d previously given up on reading ingredients lists due to the long names and codes she saw there, having a baby had made her more aware of what she was consuming.

“I decided I actually want to know what’s in my food,” she said.

“I started looking into that and then made the choice that I wanted to choose products on the shelf that were predominantly made from really recognisable ingredients.”

Ms Brdar says she wants to help people eat well on a budget. Picture: Supplied

She said when she came up with the idea, the predominant narrative around choosing less additives meant having to grow everything from scratch and, while she congratulated people who had the time to do that, the Adelaide-based mum simply did not.

Ms Brdar said most people in Australia did their grocery shopping at Coles and Woolworths but were left confused with endless choices.

The Supermarket Swap app was designed to make those choices easier, allowing people to search additives by name or code, shop specials, create shopping lists and meal plans, and even follow some recipes.

One of Ms Brdar’s favourite swaps is buying bread in the bakery section at the supermarkets rather than in the bread aisle, often finding them to be preservative free and half the price.

She says that she believes the pandemic made people more conscious of their health but the cost of living crisis had left them at a loss as to how to do that.

Ms Brdar says that most people in Australia buy their groceries at Coles and Woolworths but are often left confused with endless choices. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Roy VanDerVegt

“Traditionally, I think health and eating better has been associated with people that have a really high weekly disposable income. And [breaking that idea is] something we’re really passionate about,” she said.

“With the cost of living crisis, we make sure that everything we share in our social media community in swaps is the same price because we don’t want people to feel they have to be rich to be able to eat better.

“We want it to be accessible to everybody. Especially when it comes to feeding children, we want all parents to feel they can make great choices and it’s not going to result in blowing out their grocery bill, because it’s just so easy to do at the moment with the way prices have increased.”

Her number one tip to save money at the grocery store is to meal plan but keep it realistic, as, she says, no one cooks seven nights a week.

Originally published as Adelaide mum exposes shocking price rise on everyday items