The Most Affordable Grocery Store in Minnesota, According to New Study, Surprised Me

Studies pop up all the time on the hunt to reveal the most affordable place to get groceries. Groceries are one of those items that everyone is going to buy no matter how expensive they get. You need food. Duh.

We've written about these studies before, and usually, they show the same one or two grocery chains topping the list. However, a study that came out recently from Net Credit shows a totally different grocery store as the most affordable in Minnesota, and it surprised me!

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The Grocery Stores That Are Usually Named the Cheapest

Most of the time, anytime someone digs into which grocery stores are the cheapest, we have our same usual suspects.

Target and Walmart are both usually up there.

But the most consistent ones, as of late, are Costco and Aldi.

Aldi has a whole ad campaign going on right now that says they have "The Lowest Prices of Any National Grocery Store".

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However, this study from Net Credit, which took on the task of finding the most affordable grocery store in each state, seems to say otherwise.

The Most Affordable Grocery Store in Minnesota

What they found surprised me. The grocery store they named as the cheapest in Minnesota is a store that I really like. They have tons of options, including plenty of dairy-free and gluten-free options.

But I've never seen them as being among the most affordable places to get groceries. Which is why I was shocked (but definitely not mad) to see them named as the most affordable grocery store in Minnesota.

We're talking about HyVee!

In order to determine this result, Net Credit "built a set basket of branded groceries to compare the average cost at different supermarket chains in each state." So they looked at name-brand grocery items, not store brands or generic brands.

HyVee didn't make the cut for a majority of states, though. Target took the top spot as the most affordable grocery store in the most number of states (15 in total).

HyVee did take the cake for a lot of the Midwest, though, which makes sense, since they're based out of Iowa and only have locations in the Midwest. They took the top spot in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Nebraska.