Welcome to aubaine.ca!
Welcome to aubaine.ca!
Welcome to aubaine.ca!
By the aubaine.ca team · editorial direction: Marcel Dupont, founder · methodology
30 Jul 2026
Every fall, the same conversation comes up in kitchens across Québec: are we switching grocery stores this year or not? In 2026, the question isn't theoretical. With a cart that costs more than it did five years ago, picking the right banner isn't a budget footnote anymore — it's a decision worth several hundred dollars a year.
According to the Coops study on grocery basket prices, Maxi is the cheapest grocery store in Québec in 2026, followed by Walmart, then Super C. That's the ranking. But if you stop reading there, you'll likely pay more than you have to, because that podium tells you nothing about your basket, in your town, with your habits.
In this article, we break down the real gap between the banners, explain why the ranking flips depending on the aisle, and give you a repeatable method to find your own personal winner. Because that's the answer that actually matters.
Let's start with the most striking finding of the study. The gap between the cheapest and the priciest banner in the group is anything but cosmetic.
Between Maxi, which finishes first, and Metro, which finishes fifth, the gap reaches roughly $25 a week for a comparable basket. Over a full year, that works out to about $1,302. Take a second to let that sink in: for a lot of households, that's a full month of groceries, or a big chunk of a summer vacation budget — all because you turned left instead of right on the way out of the parking lot.
And keep in mind: that $25 gap doesn't require any heroic sacrifice. We're not talking about cutting out meat, giving up coffee or skipping fruit. We're talking about the same kind of basket, bought somewhere else.
The study gets even more specific about the practical move: for a typical Québec family, shopping at Maxi, Super C or Walmart instead of Metro or IGA means saving $40 to $80 a month. It's a range, and that makes sense: it shifts with the size of the family, how much meat shows up at supper, and whether you buy store brands.
The second number is even more interesting, because it has nothing to do with which banner you choose. Families who plan their meals around the flyers save $100 to $150 a month. In other words, how you shop pays off more than where you shop. A Maxi customer who buys at random can easily spend more than an organized IGA customer who follows the weekly flyers and builds the menu around the specials.
You also have to understand what a ranking like this really is: an average. Flyers drop on Thursday and change every week. In a week when Super C comes out swinging with a big promo on pork and chicken, Super C can absolutely be the best address in Québec for your family, no matter where Maxi sits overall. The annual ranking tells you where to shop by default; the Thursday flyer tells you where to go this week.
Here's the heart of the matter, and the part most comparisons skip. A grocery store isn't a single price: it's a patchwork of departments, and every banner has its strengths.
For most households, meat is the heaviest line item in the cart. It's also where the gaps are the most dramatic, because all three discount banners use it as a loss leader. Maxi and Super C lean hard on family formats and value packs, and the rotating specials on chicken, ground pork and roasts can flip the ranking from one week to the next.
The habit that pays: stop comparing the sticker price and compare the price per kilogram or per 100 grams. It's the only way to know whether the big pack is a genuine deal. If you have a freezer, a meat special becomes a stock-up purchase rather than a purchase for the week — and that's where your monthly savings really climb.
The fresh section is where the lowest price isn't always the lowest cost. A cheaper container of strawberries that you toss half-full because it turned in two days ended up costing you more than a perfect one. The three discount banners have different standards and different turnover, and it even varies from one store to another in the same city.
Our advice: judge the produce section at your store, not the banner in general. The Maxi in your Laval neighbourhood and the one in Trois-Rivières won't give you the same experience. And for out-of-season fruits and vegetables, the food price comparison tool saves you from driving to all three stores for nothing.
This is probably the most underrated lever of all. At Maxi, you have access to No Name and President's Choice. At Walmart, it's Great Value and the chain's in-house lines. At Super C, you'll find the Metro group's brands, including Selection and Irresistibles.
A household that buys strictly national brands — cereal, coffee, cleaning products, condiments — will only see a fraction of the gap the study describes, because those products sell for fairly similar prices everywhere and the big promos on them rotate from banner to banner. A household comfortable with store brands, on the other hand, captures the full gap. So the Maxi–Walmart–Super C ranking depends in large part on how open you are to private labels.
There's one category where the comparison isn't even fair: everything that isn't food. Toilet paper, diapers, cleaning products, school supplies, small appliances, basic clothing. Walmart isn't a grocery store, it's a general store that also sells groceries, and that structure gives it a real advantage on a household's total basket.
The result: a family with babies or teenagers can come out ahead at Walmart even though the study puts Maxi first on food, simply because the real-life cart holds a lot more than food. Which is exactly why you need to compare your own basket, not a theoretical one.
A province-wide ranking assumes you have a choice. That isn't true everywhere in Québec.
In Montréal, Laval, Longueuil, Québec, Gatineau, Sherbrooke or Saguenay, you generally have a Maxi, a Super C and a Walmart within a reasonable radius. That's the ideal setup: you can do the bulk of the shop at whichever banner is cheapest that week and pick up two or three items elsewhere without wasting your day. City residents are therefore best positioned to capture the full $25-a-week gap.
In Gaspésie, on the Côte-Nord, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue or in the Bas-Saint-Laurent, it's a different reality. The discount banners aren't always ten minutes from home, and driving 60 kilometres to save a few dollars makes no economic sense once you count gas and time. The smarter regional strategy is to bundle the big shops into trips you were already making to the regional hub — a medical appointment, a family visit, errands — and handle the rest locally. Checking the list of retailers near you before you leave saves a lot of pointless back-and-forth.
The picture is shifting. In 2026, IGA is rolling out its "Prix Club" program in Québec: Scène+ members get exclusive reduced prices every week. That doesn't turn IGA into a discount banner, but it does change the math for a loyal customer, especially in villages and neighbourhoods where IGA is the closest grocery store. On the targeted items in a given week, the gap with the three big discounters can narrow considerably — and the travel time you save counts too.
Enough theory. Here's a concrete, testable approach that replaces the endless debate with a number that actually applies to your household.
Pull out your last three grocery receipts and write down the 20 to 25 items you buy almost every week. Bread, milk, eggs, coffee, chicken, pasta, toilet paper, the kids' non-negotiable snack. Be precise about the format: 2 L of milk isn't 4 L, a 340 g can of coffee isn't a 900 g one. That benchmark basket becomes your unit of measure.
Over three weeks, do your grocery run at a different banner each time, with the same list. Write down the total. You'll end up with a real gap, measured with your formats, your brands and your local stores. That's a thousand times more useful than a provincial average, because it factors in your preferences — including how you feel about store brands.
The reversal in logic that pays the most: don't plan your meals before reading the flyer, plan them from it. Pork is on special? Pork it is this week. That behaviour is exactly what explains the $100 to $150 in monthly savings observed among organized families. The week's top deals are a great starting point for building a menu in ten minutes.
The shelf price is never the ceiling on what you can save. Add coupons, loyalty programs, and member-only prices like IGA's Prix Club for Scène+ cardholders. On the tools side, Reebee and Flipp remain the most-used flyer apps in Canada: they're handy for spotting specials, but they don't replace a comparison run with your own benchmark basket.
Positions shift. Banners launch new campaigns, tweak their store brands, open and close locations. One test in the spring and one in the fall is enough to stay current without making it your life's work.
The same method applies to bigger purchases, and that's often where the largest dollar amounts are hiding. For appliances, the marquee day is still Boxing Day, December 26. Good news for those who don't want to wait: Corbeil also runs a "Boxing Day in July," with up to 50% off and free delivery on orders of $799.99 and up. If your washer gives out in June, that changes the timeline on your decision.
For electronics and household items, Black Friday remains the late-fall benchmark — in 2025, it landed on November 28. The principle is the same as with groceries: knowing the calendar lets you buy at the right moment instead of in a panic, and panic always comes at full price.
The honest answer: Maxi finishes first in Québec in 2026 according to the Coops study, ahead of Walmart and Super C, and it's the best default bet if you have neither the time nor the desire to compare. But the real winner is whichever store saves money on your list, in your city, with your brands.
Remember the order of priority: leaving a pricier banner for a discount one earns you $40 to $80 a month; planning your meals around the flyers earns you $100 to $150. The second move carries more weight than the first — and nothing stops you from doing both.
Run the benchmark-basket test over three weeks. You'll end up with something no provincial ranking can hand you: your answer, with your numbers.
According to the Coops study, Maxi is the cheapest grocery store in Québec in 2026, followed by Walmart and then Super C. That said, it's an average based on a comparable basket: the ranking can flip in any given week depending on the flyer specials. For your own situation, comparing your personal shopping list at all three banners remains the most reliable method.
The gap between Maxi (first place) and Metro (fifth place) reaches about $25 a week, or roughly $1,302 a year. For a typical Québec family, choosing Maxi, Super C or Walmart over Metro or IGA means saving $40 to $80 a month. The real gap depends on the size of your household and how much you rely on store brands.
On the grocery basket measured in the 2026 study, Walmart ranks second, behind Maxi. That said, Walmart also sells a wide range of non-food products — toilet paper, diapers, cleaning supplies, clothing — which can work in its favour on a family's total basket. If a big share of your monthly bill is non-food, the gap may tip toward Walmart in your case.
In big centres like Montréal, Québec, Laval or Gatineau, where several banners are minutes apart, yes: you can do the bulk of the shop at the best spot and grab the specials elsewhere. In remote regions, you have to subtract the cost of gas and the travel time, which often wipes out the gain. A good solution is to bundle your big shops into trips you were already making to the regional hub.
In 2026, IGA is rolling out its "Prix Club" program in Québec: Scène+ members get exclusive reduced prices each week on a selection of products. It doesn't make IGA a discount banner, but it can narrow the gap on the targeted items, especially if IGA is the closest grocery store to your home. It's worth factoring into your overall calculation, travel time included.
Flyers from the major grocery banners generally change on Thursday, which makes it the best moment to build your menu and your shopping list for the week. Reebee and Flipp are the most-used flyer apps in Canada for browsing them. Since prices change every week, no price you see one week should be assumed to hold the next.
Yes, and often more than switching banners does: families who plan their meals around the flyers save $100 to $150 a month. The principle is simple — instead of deciding on the menu and then hunting for ingredients, you start from the week's specials and build the meals from there. It's the single most profitable grocery habit there is, and it only takes a few minutes on Thursday.
\n\n💛 Our promise: helping you save. Despite all the care we put into tracking prices, we simply cannot guarantee they are accurate at all times — they come from flyers and merchants and can change without notice. Every week, we work to give you a fair and reliable picture so you can follow your products, spot real discounts and buy at the right time, at the best price. At aubaine.ca, every dollar saved matters: our mission is to hunt down the best deals for you. Always confirm the final price in store or with the merchant.
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