Australia's supermarkets may unit-price fruit and vegetables either per kilogram or per item, and they do not choose the same way. Of 249 produce products Grovena matches across at least two chains, 52 carry a price per kilo at one chain and a price per item at another. Those two numbers cannot be compared from the label.
Here is what that looks like on four everyday items, each sold loose. Every figure was read from the retailer's own site on 19 September 2026.
| Item, sold loose | Coles | Aldi | Woolworths |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cavendish bananas | $4.90 / kg | $4.49 / kg | $0.79 each |
| Broccoli | $5.90 / kg | $3.49 / kg | $1.49 each |
| Navel oranges | $3.90 / kg | $3.49 / kg | $1.29 each |
| Afourer mandarins | $4.90 / kg | $3.99 / kg | $0.51 each |
You cannot tell from that table whether the Woolworths column is cheap or dear. A price per banana and a price per kilo of bananas are different measurements, and the one thing that would reconcile them — what a banana weighs — is the thing the per-item label does not tell you.
Why is Woolworths produce priced "each" when Coles prices per kilo?
Because the rules let each retailer decide, item by item.
The ACCC's guidance is explicit that the unit of measurement "will depend on the type of product", and that for fruit and vegetables "the unit price might be per item or per kilogram if it's supplied by weight". It gives lemons as the worked example: "the retailer can sell the lemons at a cost per item or a cost per kilo." Avocados are listed as a per-avocado product.
So none of the three chains is breaking a rule. They are exercising a discretion the rules give them, and they exercise it differently. Across the 52 produce products where the chains disagree, Woolworths is the one pricing per item in 47 of them, against three each for Coles and Aldi. Aldi's three are whole vegetables: its cauliflower, leek and pak choy are all priced per each, which is the same judgement call every chain makes on a lettuce.
That split is not an artefact of which chains we happen to match. Coles and Woolworths each appear on exactly 237 of the 249 matched products, the same number, so both had the same opportunity to be the odd one out.
It is not a niche complaint either. When CHOICE surveyed 1,011 Australians who do their household's grocery shopping in June 2025, 38% reported running into inconsistent units of measurement, and the share who find unit pricing useful had fallen from 71% in 2022 to 61%. The same research found unit pricing works when it works: 76% of shoppers picked the best-value product when they had it, against 63% when they didn't.
What the missing weight actually costs you
Both Coles and Aldi publish a piece weight for loose produce. Aldi puts all three numbers in the price line — "$0.81/0.18 kg", "approx. 0.18 kg per piece", "$4.49 per 1 kg". Coles puts the weight in the size field instead, listing its loose bananas as "approx. 170g" beside the $4.90 per kilo rate. Different formatting, same disclosure.
Borrow either weight and the Woolworths price resolves. At 170 to 180 grams, a $0.79 Woolworths banana works out at roughly $4.39 to $4.65 a kilo — cheaper than Coles at $4.90, and about level with Aldi at $4.49.
Do the same with the oranges and it goes the other way. A $1.29 navel orange is $5.16 a kilo at Coles' 250 gram estimate, or $7.17 at Aldi's 180 gram one, against $3.90 and $3.49 on the shelf beside it.
Two things follow. The per-item price is not automatically the dearer one: on bananas it beat Coles and drew with Aldi. And the answer depends entirely on a number the chain pricing per item did not publish, which is why it is not a comparison you can do at the shelf.
The unit price that just repeats the shelf price
This one every chain does.
When an item is sold singly and no weight is published, the unit price ends up being the shelf price printed a second time. A Woolworths seedless mandarin at $0.72 carries a unit price of "$0.72 / 1EA". A Coles Hass avocado at $2.50 carries "$2.50 / 1ea". The field is filled in, it is accurate, and it tells you nothing you did not already know.
| Chain | Live fruit & veg listings | Single items whose unit price is the shelf price |
|---|---|---|
| Woolworths | 477 | 167 (35.0%) |
| Coles | 491 | 81 (16.5%) |
| Aldi | 173 | 27 (15.6%) |
A one-kilogram bag of onions priced at $5.90 with a unit price of $5.90 per kilogram is not in those counts; that is simply what the arithmetic gives. Neither are the three Coles lines that carry a per-item label but do state a weight, such as a 400g bunch of cavolo nero, because a weight is exactly what makes the comparison possible. The counts are single items with no published weight, which is the case where there is genuinely nothing to divide by.
Nor is every per-item unit price useless. A Woolworths five-pack of navel oranges at $4.50 carries a unit price of $0.90 each, which is exactly the number you want when comparing it with a single orange.
There is a rarer fault that is worse than any of this, and only Woolworths has any: four multi-packs whose per-item unit price is the price of the whole pack. A two-pack of leeks at $5.70 is labelled $5.70 each, and a five-pack of kids' bananas at $3.00 is labelled $3.00 each. Those are not uninformative, they are wrong, and we never print them.
What's changing
In August 2025 the Government put five options out for consultation on strengthening the Unit Pricing Code. One was "Addressing inconsistency in units of measure to improve in-store and cross-retailer price comparisons" — this article's subject, more or less exactly. The others covered a shrinkflation notification regime, display readability, which retailers the Code covers, and civil penalties for breaches.
That consultation closed on 19 September 2025 and the Government has not yet announced what it will do. So this is a problem the regulator has named, not one it has fixed.
How to compare produce prices anyway
Find the weight on the per-kilo chain. If one chain prices a cucumber per item and another per kilo, the per-kilo one has almost always published what a single one weighs: Aldi in the price line, Coles in the size field. Divide the per-item price by that weight.
Watch for the packaged version. Where produce is sold in a punnet or bag with a stated weight, every chain gives a real per-kilo figure. A Woolworths 250g strawberry punnet is unit-priced at $14.80 per kilogram, exactly as you would want. The gap is specific to loose, single items.
Be suspicious of a unit price that matches the shelf price. If a label reads $2.50 and then $2.50 per 1ea, it is not giving you a comparison. Treat it as a shelf price and go looking for a weight.
That third step is one Grovena takes before you see a card. Where a chain's per-item unit price is just the shelf price again, and no other listing on the card prices per item either, we drop it rather than print it beside a rival's per-kilo figure, because side by side those two read as comparable and are not. Then, on produce cards where one chain prices by the piece and another states a weight — 44 cards today — we borrow that weight and show an estimate marked with a "≈" and a note naming the weight it used.
Where the chains disagree about the weight, we show nothing. Coles publishes 250 grams for a navel orange; Aldi publishes 180. That is a 39% gap on the same fruit, and averaging it would invent a number rather than find one, so those cards carry no estimate at all. An estimate never becomes the headline price on a card either.
The disagreement is worth a moment, because the two chains are not usually far apart. On loose broccoli they both call it 340 grams, and on loose Afourer mandarins they both call it 130. The orange is the outlier, which is exactly why a rule that quietly averaged the two would be worse than one that declines.
All of that is free. The borrowed weight, the "≈" estimate and the note naming the weight sit on the card for anyone, with no account and no subscription, so you can browse fruit and veg and read the sum already done. It is the one part of this article you do not have to do yourself. The catalogues do not line up item for item, so some products carry all three prices and many carry two.
Prices move underneath all of this. In the four weeks to 19 September 2026, 48.6% of the produce listings we track changed price at least once, and 63.9% of everything else did — so last month's answer to "which chain is cheapest for my basket" is not reliably this month's, and least of all outside the produce aisle. Saving a list and having it re-priced each week is part of Grovena Pro, at $5.99 a month or $49.99 a year, with 14 days free on a first subscription. It is worth it if you rebuy the same shop every week, and not worth it for a one-off trip.
A note on method
Two different kinds of number appear above.
The counts and shares are ours, measured on production on 19 September 2026. The matched set is every fruit and vegetable product where at least two of Coles, Woolworths and Aldi have a live listing carrying both a unit price and a derived quantity — 249 products. A product counts as a disagreement when one chain's listing is measured by count and another's by mass or volume. Matching produce across chains is best-effort, so these measure our catalogue rather than the whole market.
The price-change figures count live listings with at least one recorded price change between 22 August and 19 September 2026, Sydney time — 554 of 1,141 for produce, 31,790 of 49,734 for everything else. We record a point when a price changes rather than every time we look, and produce is checked daily where the rest of the catalogue is weekly, which if anything understates the gap.
Every individual price quoted is from the retailer's own site on the same day, read from the comparison-price fields each one publishes rather than anything we calculated. Prices move, so if you are reading this well after September 2026, treat the figures as an illustration of the pattern rather than today's prices.
Common questions
What does "per 1EA" mean on a supermarket price tag?
It means the unit price is per one item, rather than per kilogram or per litre. On a single loose item it is usually the same number as the shelf price, because there is nothing to divide by: a $1.29 orange priced "per 1EA" costs $1.29.
Why is Woolworths fruit priced each instead of per kilo?
Because the Unit Pricing Code lets retailers choose either basis for fruit and vegetables, and Woolworths does not publish a weight for its loose produce lines. The ACCC's guidance explicitly allows a retailer to sell lemons per item or per kilo.
Is loose fruit and veg cheaper than packaged?
Sometimes, but the label often won't tell you. Packaged produce carries a stated weight and therefore a real per-kilogram unit price; loose single items may not. Comparing the two needs a weight for the loose one.
Do supermarkets have to show unit prices in Australia?
Most do. The ACCC says most supermarkets, large grocery stores and online grocery stores must display unit pricing in store, online and in advertising. Smaller stores and those without a wide grocery range can choose to.
Is a per-item unit price ever useful?
Yes, when you are comparing things sold in different counts. A five-pack of oranges at $4.50 showing $0.90 each is directly comparable with a single orange at $1.29. It only breaks down when one side is priced by weight.
The short version
On 52 of the 249 produce products we match across at least two chains, one chain prices per kilo and another prices per item. Woolworths is the per-item side in 47 of those, against three each for Coles and Aldi — on cards where Coles appears exactly as often as Woolworths does.
It is legal: the Code lets retailers pick either basis for fruit and veg. But where a chain prices per item and publishes no weight, the comparison can't be made at the shelf. Borrowing a weight from a chain that does publish one resolves it: a $0.79 Woolworths banana is about $4.39 to $4.65 a kilo, which beats Coles and draws with Aldi. On navel oranges the two published weights differ by 39%, and both of them put the Woolworths orange well above $3.90 and $3.49 — so the direction is clear even though no honest single figure is, which is why those cards carry no estimate at all.
For more on where a ticketed discount is and isn't a real saving, see half-price specials at Coles and Woolworths. For the wider question of which chain is cheapest overall, see the cheapest supermarket in Australia.