No two IGAs are the same: why your local's prices match no one else's
IGA isn't one supermarket — it's hundreds of independent ones. Here's what that does to prices, and how to shop it anyway.
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Coles and Woolworths set prices centrally: in our October 2026 check, 98–99% of packaged groceries cost the same in Perth as on the east coast. IGA doesn't work like that. Every store is an independently owned business, and each one sets its own prices and runs its own specials. We measured how different two pairs of neighbouring stores really are.
Close together, priced apart
On 2 October 2026 we compared the online shops of two pairs of nearby Perth IGAs — one pair in neighbouring suburbs (Mount Lawley and Maylands), the other two stores in the same suburb (Hamilton Hill):
- Of the products both stores sold, 68% had the same regular price in the first pair — but only 22% in the second.
- Between 24% and 55% of one store's online range wasn't listed by the other.
- Of the products on special at either store, 69% were on special at both in the first pair and 45% in the second.
Some IGAs price much like their neighbour; others don't. Either way, "the IGA price" of anything depends on the store — what counts is your IGA's price.
Why it works this way
IGA is a brand shared by independent retailers, supplied through Metcash but owned and priced locally. That independence is the whole point — it's why your IGA can stock the local bakery's bread and cut a meat tray the majors wouldn't. The trade-off is that no national price list exists, and any app that shows you a single "IGA price" is showing you some other store's price.
It also cuts both ways at the register: your local can be sharper than the majors on some lines and dearer on others — and genuinely generous when it runs its own specials.
Pick YOUR store, get YOUR prices
This is why Mai Pantry has a "My IGA store" picker. Choose your store once and the app collects prices and specials from that store's own online range — so the IGA column in every comparison is your actual shelf price, not a state average or someone else's store.
Your list, priced across Coles, Woolworths, ALDI, Spudshed (in WA) — and your IGA, where it has an online shop.