December 21st, 2011 
Tushar Mathur There is no doubt that different people around the world have different spending habits when it comes to food. Some are more likely to eat out and others are more likely to stay home. But when it comes to an average trip to the grocery store, what are the price differences from country to country? Are some families about to take advantage of the best savings rates because they are spending less on food?
Putting Together a Shopping List
The best way to compare prices is to assume that everyone is putting the same items in their basket. For this comparison theUnited States,United Kingdom,Spain,FranceandAustraliaand their prices are represented. Of course, you can’t be sure that every family is placing these items in the cart.
Different countries have different cuisine, meals and specialties, but there are some things that most families just can’t live without. This includes items like milk, bread and eggs. For the sake of adding meat, chicken breast was included as was fresh cheese.
In order to include fresh produce to the overall prices, the same amount of items like apples, oranges, potatoes and a head of lettuce were also added to the shopping cart. Finally, a bottle of water, a bottle of mid-range wine and domestic and imported beers along with cigarettes were also included. Again, while every family may not have these items in their shopping cart, it helps to give an overall picture.
After finding some of the best savings rates, you may be considering a trip to any one of these locations. You can imagine at one point during your stay, wandering in to pick up some of these necessities to cook your own meal or to bring over to the house of a friend. Even grocery prices can be important to a traveler.
Comparisons
When the grocery list is complete and everything is in the basket,Spaincomes out on top. In most cases, in an item-to-item comparison,Spain’s food prices were less than all the others. Milk, eggs, bread and even a bottle of wine cost less inSpainthan any of the other countries represented.
As a stark comparison, the cost of the same basket of groceries inAustraliawas almost double. Bread, eggs and chicken breast were much higher as were the cigarettes and spirits purchased. There were no items that were less inAustraliathan anywhere else.
What does this mean? It could mean that the people ofSpaincould be more likely to take advantage of the best savings rates with the money they save on groceries. However, there are a variety of different factors to take into consideration when looking at the cost of items in a grocery basket.
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