To help combat rising food bills, Consumers’ Checkbook just released a survey that could save consumers thousands of dollars a year in food money.

Researchers bought dozens of products at many local grocery stores and learned, a lot of stores charge you a lot more money for the very same item.

Robert Krughoff is president of Consumers' Checkbook. He recently sat down with KIRO 7 Consumer Investigator Amy Clancy to discuss the burden rising food prices are putting on American families. “Grocery prices are going up and they’ve been going up quite dramatically in the last year, particularly in the last few months,” Krughoff told Clancy. “So people have all the more reason to shop hard for groceries.”

He says, the latest edition of Consumers’ Checkbook can help.

Its researchers recently compared local supermarkets, buying the same 152 items at all large and small local grocers.

The results? Krughoff says Safeway and Albertsons, the area's largest chains, are considered to have average prices.

According to the survey, items at Fred Meyer are about 7% lower, but not lower in quality, according to Krughoff: “Fred Meyer scored pretty well in terms of customer satisfaction, with the quality of produce, staff attention and so on.”

Groceries at QFC were found to be high quality, but also about 15% more costly than at Fred Meyer. Which could add up, says Krughoff: “the difference between QFC and Fred Meyer is, maybe a thousand dollars over the course of a year.”

He says the biggest bargains can be found at Winco, Walmart and Costco, though not all items are available at big warehouse stores.

The ones that are available, Krughoff says, are good: “Costco is rated very high for its quality of fresh meats. Very high. Yet Costco is about 28% to 30% less expensive than Safeway or Albertsons.”

The study also found smaller chains, such as Thriftway, Central Market and Metropolitan Market, all scored very high in customer satisfaction, but also had higher prices.

Comparing Trader Joe’s was difficult because it carries its own brands instead of most national brands. So Consumers’ Checkbook did a separate survey, just for Trader Joe’s. Those results, plus information on buying organic and buying at warehouse stores, can be found here: http://www.checkbook.org/interactive/spmkt/other/p/article.cfm?pr=kiro