DENVER — The Fourth of July Weekend is almost here, and many of us will be hitting the grocery store for those outdoor grilling necessities. But with inflation surging as high as this weekend’s fireworks, it’s more important than ever to shop around for those cookout ingredients.
The good news is the average cost of a summer cookout for 10 people remains affordable at $59.50, or less than $6 per person. But that’s 8% higher compared to 2019, according to a Farm Bureau analysis.
Denver7 did some comparison shopping of the three biggest grocers in the metro area: King Soopers, Walmart, and Target. We checked each retailer’s websites for those go-to cookout items to find out which one has the most 4th of July bang for your buck.
The 19 items on our shopping list were almost all store brands and include just about everything you need for about five to six people including paper plates, hamburger patties, hot dogs, potato chips, graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, tomatoes, watermelon and condiments.
The biggest surprise? All three were about the same with just about a $4 difference between the cheapest and the most expensive.
Here are the items we compared that might be on your shopping list this Fourth of July.
Walmart was the winner, coming in with a total of $67.13 plus tax. The next cheapest was King Soopers with a total of $69.04 plus tax. And the most expensive was Target, with a total of $71.31 plus tax.
Some of these items on the list were on sale, but prices have increased slightly over the past two years. The Consumer Price Index increased 1% in May on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.3% in April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
