The Outlier's grocery basket covers the prices of the same 12 staple items from eight retailers: Woolworths, Checkers, Pick n Pay, Spar, Food Lover’s Market, Shoprite, Boxer and Makro. In July, the average cost was R480, slightly cheaper than in June. Woolworths was the most expensive retailer based on our basket, at R510.88. All the other retailers came in at under R500. The difference between the cheapest and most expensive basket is R84, which is much bigger than June’s difference of R55. A drop in the price of sunflower oil is the main reason for this.