Money and the trolley · 2 min read · Seedling days
Is feeding kids healthy food more expensive in Australia?
PIPLING · THE SHELF TICKET, READ PROPERLY
Less often than the shelf makes it feel. The plainer option in a category is frequently cheaper per 100 grams; the kids packaging is what costs extra. The tool is already on every shelf ticket: the unit price. Woolworths at 38% and Coles at 29% hold roughly two-thirds of Australian grocery sales (ACCC, 2025), and both display it.
What is the unit price, and where do I find it?
It is the small per-100-gram or per-litre figure on the shelf ticket, and it is the only number that compares fairly across pack sizes and formats. A 90-gram kids snack and a 1-kilogram plain equivalent cannot be compared by shelf price; per 100 grams they meet on level ground, and the plain one usually wins.
It answers the nutrition question’s twin. Sugar per 100 grams on the back, dollars per 100 grams on the ticket: two comparisons, same ten seconds, and the plainer end of the shelf tends to win both.
Why do the free supermarket apps not answer this?
Because they are paid for by the shelf. Woolworths’ retail-media arm cites 82.7 million monthly transactions and 11+ million active rewards members, selling brands data-led access to shoppers (Cartology, 2026). The apps sort by price brilliantly. What no tile shows is whether the food suits a 14-month-old; that question has no advertiser.
What about the double-price worry?
The fear that the better choice costs double is real at the register and mostly wrong per 100 grams. Character yoghurts, kids snack multipacks and pouches carry a packaging premium over their plain neighbours; the plain tub, the oats, the fruit in the bowl sit at the cheap end of their aisles. The unit price makes this visible in seconds.
Where a plainer pick genuinely does cost more, that is worth knowing too, and deciding once, calmly, rather than re-litigating it in the aisle each week with a toddler in the trolley.
Who decides what is on the shelf in the first place?
Mostly two companies. Woolworths and Coles together hold roughly two-thirds of national supermarket grocery sales, with ALDI at 9% and independents via Metcash at 7% (ACCC, 2025). Two ranging decisions shape what most Australian children eat, which is why the same categories look near-identical in every suburb.
THE NUMBER THAT MATTERS · unit price, per 100g
The plain tub spends that budget on milk instead.
The shelf ticket, decoded
| On the ticket | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Shelf price | What you pay for this pack today; useless for comparing sizes |
| Unit price (per 100g or per litre) | The honest cost comparison across brands, sizes and formats |
| Special or member tag | A prompt to re-check the unit price; a special on a small pack can still cost more per 100g |
| Per-serve claims on the pack | The manufacturer chose the serve; the ticket’s per-100g figure is the fair one |
Common questions
Is the unit price mandatory in Australia?
Large supermarkets are required to display unit pricing, which is why the per-100-gram figure appears on the ticket in every aisle. It exists precisely so shoppers can compare fairly.
Does healthy eating cost more overall for a family?
The register total depends on what replaces what. Swapping packaged kids formats for their plain equivalents typically moves cost down, not up, and the unit price shows it per category, no faith required.
Why does the kids version cost more per 100 grams?
You are paying for portioning, packaging and the character licence, and packs carry an average of 6.7 promotional claims to justify it (George Institute, 2024). The food inside is rarely where the premium goes.
Do supermarket apps at least help with health filters?
They do the docket job well: lists, aisle sorting, unit price. No age-suitability or nutrition layer sits on any tile, because the business model is retail media, not advice (Cartology, 2026).
The research
Every figure in this article comes from one of these sources. Read them; that is what they are for.
- Dunford E. et al., Commercially-produced infant and toddler foods: how healthy are they? Maternal & Child Nutrition, 2024 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- ACCC, Supermarkets Inquiry final report, February 2025 accc.gov.au
- ACCC Supermarkets Inquiry market shares, reported by FoodNavigator-Asia, 2025 foodnavigator-asia.com
- Cartology (Woolworths Group), retail media scale cartology.com.au