Kroger and Albertsons’ CEOs Just Signaled the Walmart Price Gap Is Here to Stay. It Costs a Couple About $1,000 a Year.

Kroger’s chief executive, Greg Foran, told investors in September that "we’re not in the game of being the cheapest," Albertsons’ chief executive has said much the same, and for a retired couple who spend $650 a month at Kroger the price gap behind those nine words comes to about $1,000 a year against the same cart at Walmart.

The full sentence, from the corrected transcript of Kroger’s second-quarter call on Sept. 11, runs: "We’re not in the game of being the cheapest because we don’t have the lowest costs, but we can provide the best value." Albertsons’ chief executive, Susan Morris, said much the same on her company’s first-quarter call: "Our biggest leakage is to the big players: Walmart, Amazon, and, to some degree, Aldi, as a price-competitive player." TheStreet put the two statements together on Sunday, and the survey it cited puts a number on the gap. Consumer Reports priced the same basket of national-brand groceries at 35 chains in six metro areas in late summer 2025 and published the results in February with Walmart as the baseline. Kroger came in 14.8% above Walmart, Publix 20.3% above and Albertsons 24.8% above. Six chains were cheaper than Walmart: Costco by 21.4%, BJ’s Wholesale by 21%, Lidl by 8.5% and Aldi by 8.3%.

Two chief executives saying out loud that they will not match Walmart reads as a signal that the gap in that survey is the new normal for anyone who does the weekly shop at a traditional supermarket. The limit of that reading is in the same transcript: Foran also said Kroger knows "what that gap should be," that it is funding price cuts out of cost savings and that "you don’t do it all at once because you can’t fund it all at once." The gap can narrow over several years. Nobody at either company is promising that it closes.

The couple and their grocery bill

Take a retired couple in Texas, 68 and 66. They have $1,800,000: $1,300,000 in a rollover IRA, $400,000 in a brokerage account and $100,000 in a Roth. Social Security pays them $4,200 a month, $50,400 a year, and they spend about $96,000, so $45,600 a year comes out of savings, a 2.5% withdrawal rate. They cook most nights and shop at Kroger, where the bill runs about $650 a month, $7,800 a year.

That is higher than the average for their age group, and it should be. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2024 Consumer Expenditure Survey puts food at home for households headed by someone 65 or older at $5,251 a year, about $438 a month, up 5.6% from $4,973 in 2023. That average mixes widows living alone with couples, so a two-person household that eats at home lands well above it. The same households spent $2,689 a year in restaurants, $7,940 of food in all.

What the same cart costs across the street

Apply the Consumer Reports gaps to the couple’s $7,800 Kroger basket and the Walmart version of the same basket costs $6,794, a saving of $1,006 a year, 12.9% of the bill, about $84 a month. The regional chains run the other way: the same basket at Publix would cost $8,174, and at Albertsons $8,479.

Costco would cut the bill to $5,340, a saving of $2,460, or $2,395 after the $65 Gold Star membership. Aldi would save $1,570. A couple spending the same $7,800 at Publix would save $1,316 by moving the basket to Walmart; at Albertsons the saving is $1,550.

The yearly numbers look small next to a seven-figure portfolio. Over a retirement they add up. If the couple pays the Kroger premium for 20 years and grocery prices rise at the 2.6% a year the Department of Agriculture reports as the 20-year average, the gap comes to about $26,000 of spending. Saved and invested at the 5.8% a year Fidelity forecasts for U.S. stocks over the next 20 years, the same $1,006 a year grows to about $45,000.

The 2027 food budget

Grocery inflation is the quiet part of your budget right now. The food-at-home index rose 1.8% in the 12 months to September, against 3.5% for restaurant meals and 3.7% for everything the Consumer Price Index tracks. The Department of Agriculture’s Food Price Outlook, updated Oct. 23, forecasts grocery prices up 2.3% for 2026 and 1.0% for 2027, with a prediction interval from a 5.2% fall to a 7.5% rise. Restaurant prices are forecast to rise 2.8% in 2027. Inside the 2026 grocery number, eggs are forecast down 29.3%, beef up 8.7% and fresh vegetables up 5.8%, so if you eat a lot of beef your number is higher than the average.

For the couple, the central forecast turns $7,800 into $7,878 in 2027, $656 a month, a rise of $78 for the year. The full interval runs from $7,394 to $8,385, or $616 to $699 a month. For the average 65-and-older household, $5,251 in 2024 becomes about $5,600 in 2027 at the reported 2025 increase of 2.3% and the two forecasts, about $463 a month.

The other side of the ledger moves more. January’s 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment adds $151 a month to the couple’s $4,200 of Social Security, $1,814 a year, enough to cover the forecast grocery rise 23 times over. The Medicare trustees project the standard Part B premium at $209.50 in 2027, up $6.60 a month from $202.90; for two people that is $158 a year, taken out of the check before it lands. The official 2027 premium is due this month. After it, about $1,656 of the raise is left for everything else.

Where $1,006 fits in a $1,800,000 plan

If you have run your own retirement spreadsheet for 30 years, you already know the instinct this story speaks to, and you also know its scale. A quarter of a percentage point in fund expenses on $1,800,000 is $4,500 a year, 4.5 times the grocery gap, and a bad first year of withdrawals in a market like this one can cost more than a lifetime of Kroger premiums. The grocery gap is 0.056% of the portfolio and 1.0% of what the couple spends in a year. It is also the only one of those three numbers you can change on Saturday morning without a market view or an adviser, and the survey says most shoppers at a traditional supermarket are paying it without knowing its size.

What to do

Price your own basket once. Consumer Reports’ method works at the kitchen table: write down the 20 items you buy every week, with sizes, and price them at the two nearest stores on the same day. Your gap will differ from the national 14.8%: the survey found Aldi’s advantage ranging from 4% in Los Angeles to 16.3% in Virginia Beach.

Split the trip. Thomas Paulson of Advan told TheStreet that where Kroger and Albertsons can compete is "localized and farm-to-store produce, a better/tailored prepared meals/ready-to-eat offering, better service, and easy-to-access, convenient stores." Buy those there, and move the national-brand staples, the part of the basket the survey priced, to the cheapest store you can reach. If you move half the basket you keep half the saving, about $500 a year, with no change in what is on your table.

Put the saving where you can see it. $84 a month is a Roth contribution for a grandchild with earned income, or both of your Part B increases for the year, paid by February. Make it a line in your plan and review it each year when the Food Price Outlook and the COLA come out.

The bottom line

Kroger’s and Albertsons’ chief executives have said the price gap with Walmart is not going away, and Consumer Reports has measured it at 14.8%, 20.3% and 24.8% for Kroger, Publix and Albertsons. For a retired couple spending $7,800 a year at Kroger that is $1,006 a year, $26,000 over 20 years, or $45,000 if invested. Their 2027 grocery bill rises about $78 on the government’s central forecast, and their Social Security raise is $1,814. The gap is small against $1,800,000 and large against the effort it takes to close it.

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