Stop & Shop to cut prices on 3,000-plus items in Mass. stores

Boston Globe

6 hours ago

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'We're trying to win our customers' loyalty and get more of their 'basket spend' with us,' Stop & Shop President Roger Wheeler said in an interview. 'We just felt it was really important to reset our pricing across the whole store. ... We really feel like we owe it to the people of Massachusetts to give them the Stop & Shop they want. And the Stop & Shop that they want is a little bit better version than it was.'
The items being marked down represent an even mix of private-label (store) brands and national brands. However, they're only a small portion of the 50,000 to 60,000 items that a typical Stop & Shop carries. (Wheeler noted that the price cuts will be on top of the roughly 10,000 items that are typically on sale at Stop & Shop at any given time.)
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Examples range from Stop & Shop Italian bread ($1.79 for 16 ounces, down from $2.49) to Chobani nonfat yogurt ($1.49 for 5.3 ounces, down from $1.79) to Ken's salad dressing ($2.99 for 9 ounces, down from $3.29). Other items getting marked down include russet potatoes, Sargento shredded cheese, and Stop & Shop pasta.
Chobani prices are coming down at Stop & Shop.
Photo courtesy of Stop & Shop
The price cuts are part of a broader effort at Ahold to trim $1 billion in prices over four years among its various US chains, an effort that began in 2024. Sister chain Hannaford, for example, recently cut prices on 2,500 private-label items in Massachusetts. And Stop & Shop has already enacted price cuts at its stores in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Western Massachusetts.
'We went through a period of shrinking last year ... and now we want to grow,' Wheeler said.
Wheeler said it's just a coincidence that these price cuts are hitting while one of Stop & Shop's chief competitors, Tewksbury-based
'We've been planning this out for two years,' Wheeler said. 'I don't have anything to comment on about Market Basket. We're so focused on trying to be the best version of Stop & Shop that we can be. I have a lot of competitors. That's one of them. I'm just trying to make our customers happy.'
Ahold isn't the only one paring back prices. Shaw's and Star Market also recently began cutting prices on select items and advertising the cuts on store shelves and in circulars, as part of a corporate push by their parent company, Albertsons.
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Stop & Shop and Shaw's are already among the most expensive chains in New England, per a June survey by retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group. That survey showed prices collectively at a Stop & Shop store in Greater Boston were nearly 30 percent higher than at relatively close Walmart and Market Basket stores, while prices at Shaw's were nearly 37 percent higher.
The differential, managing director Burt Flickinger of the consultancy group said, threatens to
'Star, [Stop & Shop], and Shaw's are so out of bounds on pricing,' Flickinger said. 'They can do everything they want with this massive price reduction campaign, but they're coming from the historic highest level of prices.'
Edgar Dworsky, founder of the ConsumerWorld.org website, said supermarket chains tend to launch price-cut initiatives every decade or so. However, he noted that most items in the stores tend not to be affected.
'We've seen these kinds of supermarket price wars [before],' Dworsky said. 'It's a good kind of war for shoppers. ... I'm happy that both Star/Shaw's and Stop & Shop are doing this because grocery prices have been too high. But for shoppers, this doesn't mean you throw caution to the wind and no longer have to be a comparison shopper.'
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Jon Chesto can be reached at