Coles and Woolworths put essentials on special. Aldi and Harris Farm were still cheaper.
We compared Woolworths and Coles specials to the everyday shelf price at Aldi and Harris Farm. The deals were not as good as the yellow tickets suggest.
Woolworths has RSPCA chicken breast on special this week. Nine dollars a kilo, down from twelve. Harris Farm charges $8.99 a kilo for chicken breast from their butcher counter. That is their standard price, every week, no yellow ticket required.
We compared twelve everyday essentials across Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, and Harris Farm using Pinch's price tracking data. The same pattern turned up across almost every product: the duopoly's specials rarely beat the everyday shelf price at the alternatives.
They match each other to the cent.
We used EAN-13 barcodes to verify the exact same product across retailers. Six of ten branded items were priced identically at Coles and Woolworths. The remaining gaps were marginal: 50 cents on cheese, 50 cents on mince. The two biggest exceptions were Mainland cheese, where Coles had a weekly promotion and Woolworths did not.
| Product | Size | Woolworths | Coles | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bega Tasty Cheese | 500g | $11.20 | $11.20 | $0.00 |
| Lurpak Spreadable Butter | 400g | $9.00 | $9.00 | $0.00 |
| Tip Top The One White | 700g | $4.70 | $4.70 | $0.00 |
| Free Range Eggs (own-brand) | 12pk | $6.20 | $6.20 | $0.00 |
| RSPCA Chicken Breast | per kg | $14.50 | $14.50 | $0.00 |
| Lurpak Unsalted Butter | 250g | $6.25* | $6.25* | $0.00 |
| Bega Tasty Cheese | 250g | $7.50 | $8.00 | $0.50 |
| Pork & Beef Mince | 500g | $7.00 | $7.50 | $0.50 |
| Mainland Tasty Cheese | 500g | $11.80 | $10.20* | $1.60 |
| Mainland Extra Tasty Cheese | 500g | $11.80 | $10.20* | $1.60 |
* On special this week. All prices as of 4 June 2026.
If you have ever driven to Woolworths instead of Coles expecting a better deal on Bega cheese or Lurpak butter, the data says you spent more on petrol than you saved.
The specials that cost more than someone else's shelf price.
High-low pricing is a straightforward mechanic. Set a high regular price. Periodically reduce it. Label the reduction as a "special." The customer sees a discount and feels a win. The question nobody asks at the checkout: a discount compared to what, exactly?
Chicken breast, per kg: Woolworths vs Harris Farm
The Woolworths "special" (dark bar) is one cent more than what Harris Farm charges every day. Off-special, Woolworths is 61% more expensive.
Here is what happens across four products when you compare the current Woolworths specials to the standard shelf price at retailers that do not play the same game.
| Product | Woolworths "special" | Regular price | Everyday elsewhere | You still pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSPCA Chicken Breast (per kg) | $9.00* | $12.00 | $8.99 Harris Farm | +$0.01 |
| Lurpak Unsalted Butter (250g) | $6.25* | $7.25 | $5.80 Harris Farm | +$0.45 |
| Dairy Farmers Milk (2L) | $4.65* | $4.95 | $3.55 Aldi | +$1.10 |
| Allowrie Unsalted Butter (250g) | $5.20* | $5.90 | $3.99 Aldi | +$1.21 |
* Current promotional price at Woolworths. "Regular price" is the non-promotional shelf price. Prices as of 4 June 2026.
- Chicken breast: Woolworths' promotional $9.00/kg is one cent more than Harris Farm's standard rate. Off-special, Woolworths jumps to $14.50/kg: 61% more. The yellow ticket did not make it cheap. It made a $14.50 product temporarily approach what another shop charges every day of the year.
- Lurpak butter: Woolworths' special of $6.25 is still 45 cents above Harris Farm's everyday $5.80. No promotional ticket at Harris Farm. No need for one.
- Dairy Farmers milk: Woolworths drops it from $4.95 to $4.65 and calls it a saving. Aldi's Farmdale 2L is $3.55 every week. The Woolworths "deal" costs $1.10 more than Aldi's standard price.
- Sunny Queen eggs (the exception): Woolworths' current special ($6.00 for a 700g dozen) does undercut Aldi by 19 cents this week. These moments exist. They require you to track prices weekly, buy immediately, and hope the product you need is the one on promotion.
Aldi is cheaper on every basic. Without trying.
Strip out the promotions. Compare the everyday price on the cheapest available option in each category. Aldi beats Woolworths on every product we checked. Coles, where we have comparable data, matches Woolworths almost exactly, so the gap applies to both.
| Product | Size | Woolworths | Aldi | Save |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSPCA Chicken Breast | per kg | $14.50 | $11.99 | $2.51 |
| Full Cream Milk | 2L | $4.95 | $3.55 | $1.40 |
| Unsalted Butter | 250g | $4.80 | $3.99 | $0.81 |
| Pork & Beef Mince | 500g | $7.00 | $6.29 | $0.71 |
| Free Range Eggs | 12pk, 600g | $6.20 | $5.99 | $0.21 |
| White Sandwich Bread | 650g | $2.50 | $2.39 | $0.11 |
| Weekly total (one of each) | $39.95 | $34.20 | $5.75 |
Woolworths prices are everyday (non-promotional). Aldi prices are standard shelf. Butter comparison: Westgold (Woolworths) vs Pure Valley (Aldi). Prices as of 4 June 2026.
No individual line looks dramatic on its own:
- Twenty-one cents on eggs. Eleven cents on bread. Trivial in isolation.
- A family buying all six items weekly saves $5.75 a week.
- Over a year, that compounds.
Estimated annual saving from buying six staple items at Aldi instead of Woolworths. Eggs, bread, mince, butter, milk, and chicken. A typical family shop covers far more products than six.
What the high-low cycle actually costs you.
The specials cycle turns price into a moving target. Lurpak butter at Woolworths swings between $7.25 and $6.25 depending on the week. If you catch the special every single time, you pay $325 a year for one block per week. Harris Farm sells the same block for $5.80 every visit: $301.60 a year.
Even the most disciplined Woolworths special-chaser pays $23.40 more per year on butter than someone who walks into Harris Farm any day of the week. Miss the special half the time, and your average annual cost jumps to $351. That is $49.40 more than Harris Farm. On one product.
Annual cost of one block of Lurpak butter per week
Even catching every Woolworths special costs $23 more per year than Harris Farm's everyday price. Miss half the specials and you lose $49 a year on butter alone.
This is the mechanism:
- The high regular price creates the room for the discount.
- The discount creates the feeling of saving.
- The feeling of saving stops you from checking whether the "deal" is actually competitive.
- Multiply this across a trolley of thirty or forty items and the gap between perception and reality widens considerably.
New price gouging rules take effect on 1 July 2026.
From 1 July, the ACCC gains expanded powers to act on unfair pricing practices in Australian supermarkets. Compliance is one thing; verification is another. Shoppers still need a way to check, before they leave the house, whether the price on the yellow ticket is a genuine deal or a manufactured comparison to an inflated baseline.
When was the last time you compared a "special" to what the shop next door charges every week?
Check the real price before you leave the house
Pinch tracks prices across Woolworths, Coles, ALDI, Harris Farm, and Umall, updated weekly. Compare every store side by side and decide for yourself whether that special is worth crossing the road for.
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Prices referenced in this article were sourced from publicly available retail pricing information, as tracked by Pinch, on 4 June 2026. Prices, promotions, and product availability change frequently and vary by location. Your local store may differ from the prices shown here. This article presents a point-in-time comparison, not a guarantee of current pricing.
Methodology
- Prices sourced from Pinch's database on 4 June 2026. Pinch tracks publicly available retail pricing information across five Australian retailers.
- Barcode-matched comparisons use EAN-13 codes to verify the identical product across retailers.
- Per-kilogram prices for meat and deli products are derived from the retailer's published unit pricing.
- Own-brand and budget-tier comparisons match the closest equivalent product by category and size.
- "Gap" figures compare the on-special or everyday price to the cheapest equivalent at another retailer.
- Prices marked * indicate a current promotional (special) price. Regular prices are the non-promotional shelf price as published by the retailer.
- Annual savings estimates assume weekly purchase of one unit per product at the prices shown, and do not account for price changes over time.