Vacaville Grocery Store Price Comparison
We compared prices at grocery stores in Vacaville. Here are the cheapest and most expensive stores we found in town.
Grocery Store Price Comparison in Vacaville
We identified a handful of brand-name products we imagined every grocery store would carry (we were surprised when a few didn’t carry every item). We then visited the Vacaville stores on the same day to compare prices.
Rules of the Comparison
We tried our hardest to make this an apples-to-apples comparison, but that was more difficult than we thought it would be. Here are the general rules we followed:
Absolutely nobody paid or sponsored us to create this post! We physically went to every store on July 24th, 2023 and checked current prices.
This Was Harder Than We Thought
Getting apple-to-apple prices to compare every grocery store in Vacaville was harder than we thought. One store (Safeway) has the “member” and “non-member” prices. Some brands we thought for sure would be at every store weren’t, so we used the closest match we could find. Some stores charged more for name brands but had really good deals on generic products.
In the end, we threw out some of the products we had planned to compare because we just couldn’t give an accurate comparison across all stores. We also tried to do a few other markets (like Sprouts) but they just didn’t have the same brands of products we were comparing.
Which Stores We Compared
We know there are other stores that sell “groceries,” but we focused on traditional, large, grocery stores. We did not compare wholesalers (Costco or Sam’s Club) or smaller markets. Here’s the list of grocery stores included in our analysis:
We know price isn’t the only factor in choosing a grocery store. We included some overall thoughts about the stores at the end of this article.
What Products We Compared
We ended up comparing prices on nine grocery products in Vacaville. The products we chose were:
The Results: Cheapest and Most Expensive Grocery Stores in Vacaville
The results are in. WinCo was the cheapest place to buy these groceries. Safeway was technically the most expensive (see comments below). Here are the eight stores ranked by price (the total price of all items surveyed):
| Grocery Store | Total Cost |
|---|---|
| WinCo | $45.56 |
| Wal-Mart (Alamo) | $48.21 |
| Wal-Mart (Elmira) | $50.94 |
| Raley’s | $58.00 |
| Lucky (Monte Vista) | $66.41 |
| Lucky (Peabody) | $66.51 |
| Nugget | $66.60 |
| Safeway | $68.21 |
Some Comments About These Results
We were surprised that different locations of the same grocery chain would have different prices. The most notable of these were the Wal-Mart grocery stores. The differences in price came from the bacon and eggs pricing. The Elmira store was more expensive for the same eggs and bacon products.
While Safeway came in as the most expensive, we did not consider any special pricing such as “buy one, get one” etc. Sodas were buy two/get two at Safeway but to keep our apples-to-apples comparison, we went with the individual price for a 12-pack (which was $2 more than most places). Had we taken into consideration the special pricing, Nugget would likely have been the most expensive store.
More Than Just Prices Matter
Obviously prices may not be the only consideration for everyone when choosing their grocery store. Location, selection, cleanliness, customer service and many other factors go into the decision.
Customer Service & Amenities
For example, Winco is the cheapest grocery store in Vacaville but they are known as a “no-frills” store. They don’t accept credit cards and you bag your own groceries. The reduction in service keeps prices lower. We also noted, the savings here could be even greater as WinCo appeared to have the largest selection of generic options.
Selection
Nugget in Vacaville comes in as one of the most expensive grocery stores. It’s still a very popular store, in part because of their selection of hard-to-find products, organic produce, deli and bakery items. In our opinion it was also the cleanest store we surveyed.
Location
While the middle-of-the-road stores offer more services and selection than the lower-priced stores, there are stores located throughout Vacaville to serve different markets. In many cases, the store closest to your home is where customers choose to buy groceries.
