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A new ranking names the top Mass. supermarkets for price and quality. Do you agree?

Boston.com wants to know your go-to grocery store, and why you love it.

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By Peter Chianca

1 minute to read

There are a lot of takeaways from Consumer Checkbook’s new ratings of supermarkets in Massachusetts. But there’s one common denominator we think we can all agree on: It’s tough to beat the Basket.

That’s Market Basket, of course, which the watchdog group picked as being the top Bay State store when it comes to value, finishing just a hair ahead of the more city-focused chain, Price Rite.

MB was no slouch in the quality department either — while not ranked as high as the likes of Roche Bros. or Wegmans, the Tewksbury-based chain still got pretty high scores for overall quality, even surpassing the notoriously persnickety Whole Foods.

Consumer Checkbook rated how Boston area grocery chains and stores stack up for price and quality. Consumer Checkbook

Some other interesting factoids from the rankings, for which Consumer Checkbook researchers used a list of 154 common items to shop area options, and surveyed consumers on quality of products and service:

  • If you’re going to shop at Stop & Shop, shop at one that has a Market Basket nearby — the prices are lower in those.
  • Wegmans is no longer lowballing; whereas when the chain first moved to Massachusetts it was among the lower-cost options, its prices are now 12% higher than average.
  • Walmart and Target are actually pretty good supermarket options when it comes to value. The downside of course being, you have to go to Walmart and Target.
Playing the (SUPER)Markets:

But one thing none of the above takes into consideration is the fact that there are more ephemeral criteria when it comes to your supermarket of choice. Maybe it’s the location; the atmosphere; the music; the friendly baggers; the color of the aprons. And that’s where you come in.

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Take the Boston.com survey below, or e-mail [email protected], and let us know: If you were forced to choose an exclusive supermarket, which one would it be? And feel free to let us know what about that particular market won your heart. We’ll let you know the results in a future article.

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