Hello! Welcome to Week Ten of the Grocery Hunt, Manchester Ink Link’s guide to Manchester-area grocery stores.
Earlier this week, we asked our readers to give us five specific grocery items and five separate Manchester-area grocery stores so we could find the prices and availability of those items.
We’re also tracking the prices and availability of each item week by week with the hopes of finding the local grocery store with the best prices and best availability for items that our readers are looking for.
Before we begin, here are some caveats.
- All prices were checked on Wednesday, March 10 from approximately 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Prices and item availability may change without notice.
- Items may have been available during the aforementioned time but could not be found. Within this column, all efforts available to an ordinary grocery shopper were made to find the item. If you see an error here, please e-mail a picture of the item and the price tag to andy@manchesterinklink.com
- Unless asked for a specifically-sized item by a reader, situations where stores have different amounts of the exact same item will be compared by weight or volume. If stores have multiple sizes of that item, the average cost per weight or volume will be used. Averaged prices are rounded to nearest hundredth of a cent.
Two more housekeeping items before we get started.
First, Manchester Police reported that a man (pictured) stole a set of Walmart’s master keys on Monday. As stated above, we take no responsibility if this man enters Walmart in the middle of the night and changes prices around. If anyone has information on this man, police are asking they call 603-668-8711 or 603-624-4040 (anonymous tip line)
Second, we want to apologize to Erik Street. Erik asked us to look for buffalo chicken salad a day before we asked for submissions. When we asked, a general trend for produce-related items popped up this week, so we ran with it. Erik, we’ll get your buffalo chicken salad next week!
Now, without further ado, here’s the prices.
Bagged frozen peas
- Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $0.97/lb. ($1.89 – store brand/2 lbs., $0.99 – store brand/1 lb.)
- Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – $1.06/lb. ($2 – store brand/1 lb., $0.84 – store brand/12 oz.)
- Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – $1.32/lb. ($2.59 – store brand/2 lbs., $1.99 – store brand/24 oz.)
- Aldi: 1111 S. Willow St., Manchester, NH – $1.50/lb.
- Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – $2.29/lb. ($1.38/lb. – store brand, $3.19/lb. – Bird’s Eye)
Red Seedless Grapes
- Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – $0.96/lb.
- Aldi: 1111 S. Willow St., Manchester, NH – $1.69/lb.
- Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $1.69/lb.
- Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – $1.77/lb.
- Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – $1.99/lb.
Whole Mushrooms (white)
- Aldi: 1111 S. Willow St., Manchester, NH – $3.38/lb. ($1.69, 8 oz.)
- Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $3.53/lb.
- Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – $3.65/lb. ($3.54 – 16 oz./Georgio, $1.88 – 8 oz./Georgio)
- Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – $4.58/lb.
- Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – $5.78/lb.
Rutabaga
- Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – $0.99/lb.
- Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $0.99/lb.
- Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – n/a
- Aldi: 1111 S. Willow St., Manchester, NH – n/a
- Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – n/a
Iceberg lettuce
- Aldi: 1111 S. Willow St., Manchester, NH – $1.25 each
- Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – $1.29 each
- Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – $1.62 average ($1.28 each – Ocean Mist, $1.96 each – generic)
- Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH -$1.69 each
- Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $1.69 each
Number of times when a store had the best price on a particular item (Year-to-Date) (After Week 10)
Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – 15
Aldi: 1111 S. Willow St., Manchester, NH – 6.5
Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – 6
Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – 6
Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – 2
Price Rite: 365 Lincoln St., Manchester, NH – 1.5
Shaw’s: 1328 Hooksett Rd., Hooksett, NH – 1
Hannaford: 7 Kilton Rd, Bedford, NH 03110 – 1
Hannaford: 140 Bicentennial Dr, Manchester, NH – 0
Target: 220 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – 0
Bunny’s Superette: 75 Webster St., Manchester, NH – 0
Saigon Asian Market: 476 Union St., Manchester, NH – 0
Whole Foods: 121 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – 0
Number of times when a store had a particular item in stock (After Week 10)
Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – 34
Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – 27
Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – 26
Aldi: 1111 S. Willow St., Manchester, NH – 12
Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – 10
Price Rite: 365 Lincoln St., Manchester, NH – 8
Shaw’s: 1328 Hooksett Rd., Hooksett, NH – 4
Hannaford: 7 Kilton Rd, Bedford, NH 03110 – 3
Hannaford: 140 Bicentennial Dr, Manchester, NH – 2
Target: 220 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – 2
Whole Foods: 121 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – 2
Bunny’s Superette: 75 Webster St., Manchester, NH – 1
Saigon Asian Market: 476 Union St., Manchester, NH – 0
Previous Grocery Hunts
- March 4, 2021: Grocery Hunt: Saint Patrick’s beef edition
- February 25, 2021: Grocery Hunt: Searching for the best part of waking up
- February 18, 2021: Grocery Hunt: Saving a penny on Thomas’ English Muffins
- February 8, 2021: Grocery Hunt: Five-way banana battle
- February 4, 2021: Grocery Hunt: What are Lady Gaga Oreos?
- January 28, 2021: Grocery Hunt: Which Hannaford has the Bucatini?
- January 20, 2021: Scrapple gives Market Basket bragging rights in Week 3 of the Grocery Hunt
- January 14, 2021: Walmart takes the crown in Week 2 of the Grocery Hunt
- January 6, 2021: Introducing the Manchester-area Grocery Hunt!