Who Has the Cheapest Groceries in Newberg Right Now?

Where’s the cheapest store in Newberg to get your groceries? With the cost of living continuously on the rise, it’s a question many people are asking. It’s a question I set out to answer when I drove from my home in East Portland to Newberg on Friday, April 10 to report this piece for Newsberg.

For more than a year, I’ve tracked grocery prices in the Portland metro area for my publication, Stumptown Savings. While other food writers focus on restaurant openings and closings, I cover the food you eat at home — groceries. 

Newberg is far enough from Portland proper to warrant a special examination. Sure, you have the two biggest chains in Oregon: Fred Meyer and Safeway, but you also have two interesting local options in Nap’s Thriftway and Ray’s Produce. So for this story, my goal was clear: Focus specifically on grocery stores in Newberg city limits to figure out who has the best prices. 

Methodology

I started by outlining the stores to track: Fred Meyer, Grocery Outlet, Nap’s Thriftway, Ray’s Produce, and Safeway. Then, with the help of Newsberg founder and editor Branden Andersen, I crafted a list of common grocery staples that could serve as a litmus test for a light weekly grocery haul:

• 1 pound of apples
• 1 dozen large, cage-free eggs
• 1 gallon of whole milk
• 1 pound of 80/20 ground beef
• 1 pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 family size (18-ounce) box of standard Cheerios

For each store, I recorded the lowest price available for every item on the list. In cases where stores offered both options, I recorded organic and conventional prices side-by-side. If a conventional version wasn’t available, I skipped that item for that location.

The goal was to get a snapshot of how prices vary across these five stores, with an effort of providing the price transparency we often lack. Prices vary week-to-week based on specials and inventory, but this should provide a general idea.

Here’s what I learned. 

A Price Comparison

Let’s start with a crucial note: Not every store carried every item on our list. For instance, Ray’s Produce didn’t stock ground beef, Cheerios, or boneless, skinless chicken breasts, so I excluded them from the overall store-to-store comparisons. 

The totals for the six conventional items tracked at the remaining stores broke down as follows:

Conventional Items

The total basket price wasn’t even close: Grocery Outlet came in more than $3 cheaper than the second-place store. They were the cheapest overall and offered the best prices on most individual items, including eggs, whole milk, ground beef, and chicken. They also tied with Safeway for the best price on a family-size box of Cheerios (which was on sale at both locations that week).

Nap’s Thriftway showed a relative weakness in packaged goods, specifically carrying the highest-priced box of Cheerios at $6.49. However, they were competitive on fresh items. They had better prices than Fred Meyer and Safeway on eggs and milk, and matched Safeway’s price for apples.

A quick note on Ray’s Produce: While they couldn’t be included in the overall comparisons, they offer unbeatable value on seasonal produce (I tracked apples). They were also competitive on eggs and milk, sourcing both from local producers, which you’re less likely to find at Fred Meyer or Safeway.

For organic items, only three stores stocked all the necessary items (excluding Cheerios). 

Here, Grocery Outlet once again delivered substantial savings, coming in more than $10 cheaper than both Safeway and Fred Meyer.

While Grocery Outlet generally carries fewer items than the bigger supermarkets like Safeway (whose organic produce selection was noticeably slim) and Fred Meyer, its focus on staples and specialty frozen/packaged treats allows it to offer real savings, particularly on organic proteins. They did not stock organic milk, and their organic eggs were tied with Fred Meyer and Safeway for the most expensive.

A standout was Nap’s Thriftway: Primarily stocking local egg brands, Nap’s offered the cheapest price for organic eggs, with a dozen large free-range eggs coming in $0.20 cheaper than the competitors.

The Bigger Picture

While this was a one-week snapshot of a light grocery haul, the savings really add up if extrapolated over a whole year. The $3+ advantage Grocery Outlet had over the other stores turns into more than $150 saved over 52 weeks. The savings is even greater if you’re shopping for organic items, where it’d add up to more than $560 annually. 

But to really maximize your savings, you’ll want to ditch the standard approach to grocery shopping: visiting the same store week in week out. For example, while Grocery Outlet was the cheapest overall, you’ll pay more for produce than you will at Ray’s Produce, which focuses on locally grown, seasonal items.

The real savings come from how you shop, not just where.

How To Maximize Your Savings: A New Way of Shopping

• Diversify your stores: Don’t rely on a single store. Use Grocery Outlet for overall value and staples, Fred Meyer or Safeway for a wider selection or specialty items, and Ray’s Produce or Nap’s Thriftway for local produce and fresh, seasonal items.
• Shop around strategically: Instead of visiting multiple stores every week, compare weekly ads and develop a game plan. Since Newberg’s stores are clustered close together, rotating between them is manageable.
• Buy hearty produce in bulk: Purchase seasonal items like apples, potatoes, and onions in larger quantities once or twice a month at stores like Ray’s Produce or Nap’s Thriftway to save money and support local farmers.
• Stock up on sale proteins: Monitor sales at Fred Meyer and Safeway (I do this for you each week at Stumptown Savings). Use your freezer to store these items so you can avoid overpaying or making frequent trips for essentials.
• Bulk-buy shelf-stable goods: Conduct a once-a-month shop for pantry staples at stores with the best bulk prices, such as WinCo Foods in McMinnville.
• Prioritize quality for perishables: For your “week-of” needs like delicate produce, fresh eggs, and milk, choose the store that best balances cost and quality for your specific household.

Subscribe to Stumptown Savings for More

Each week, Stumptown Savings tracks grocery deals at more than 20 Portland-area grocery stores, including Fred Meyer, Grocery Outlet, Safeway, and Nap’s Thriftway.

But it’s not just deals. I also conduct grocery store taste tests, cover farmers markets, highlight what’s in season, and provide a detailed look at the Portland region’s food scene through the lens of groceries. 

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