The Market Report

  Now, The Market Report moves to the southwestern corner of Vermont! Bennington is the bigger town in this area along with Manchester, and this area is very close to Albany and New York's Capital Region (Bennington is around 35 miles from Albany). We're going to continue to see stores along the route 9 corridor across southern VT in Woodford and Bennington, where we'll spend most of the time in this group, and then head up to Manchester. On Monday, our first post will be a general store about halfway between Wilmington and Bennington!

Time for another price comparison! It's The Market Report's fourth comparison -- 50 items across departments at 35 stores in the northeast. Who comes out on top?  Click here to see the latest comparison! This time, the longtime champ ALDI returns to the top spot. Plus, LIDL and three Wakefern brands jump up in price as ALDI and Walmart decrease their prices. In New England, the price gap between Shaw's and Hannaford widens again -- but this time, Shaw's comes in solidly lower as Hannaford's prices rise once more. To the south, SuperFresh becomes the lowest-priced independent/small-chain surveyed, and Gristedes once again claims its dubious honor of being by far the highest-priced on the list. Plus... Supermarket News features this price comparison in a news article here !

For the first time ever, The Market Report arrives in the Green Mountain State! And unlike Maine and New Hampshire , I actually have a lot of coverage over a lot of the state. While I can't claim to have photographed every supermarket in Vermont (or even close to it), we have enough posts that our coverage of Vermont will actually take almost four months. The Market Report's first stop is in the southeastern part of the state, around the Brattleboro area. From there, we'll turn north via Putney to make our way up to Bellows Falls and White River Junction, all along the New Hampshire border. We'll circle inland via Chester, Londonderry, and a few other towns in the middle of the state before turning south again to wind up in Wilmington about halfway across the state (east-west, that is) near the MA border. Come back tomorrow to start in Brattleboro!

  Continuing the celebration of The Market Report's 10th year! Each month of 2026, I'll be posting a different special feature to celebrate my 10th year of writing this blog. There's a lot to see already, so here's a summary of what we've done so far: January: Remembering A&P February: Best of 2016-2020 March: Back in Time ( Day 1 , Day 2 , Day 3 ) April: Recommended Reading May: Behind the Scenes June: Best of 2021-2025 July:  Shop the City Following up on April's Recommended Reading post, here's some more recommendations. Now, I love supermarkets, but in my real life outside of this blog, I read (and write) about all kinds of food stuff, so let's step away from the world of supermarkets for a day. Here's the best of what you need to be reading food-wise outside supermarkets, plus a handful of supermarket-specific recommendations at the end. Food Journalism Okay, fair warning here: there's much more outstanding food journalism than I c...

Remember the Lowell area (also see here )? Now, it's time to return to that general area -- though this time, we're across the border on the New Hampshire side. It's time to visit Nashua and a few of its suburbs, including Merrimack, Milford, and Hudson. We'll see only a few stores over the next couple weeks -- I haven't spent a lot of time in this area -- but some good news here: recently (like, earlier this month), I got to return to Nashua for the first time in about five years and significantly expanded my collection. So you'll see some late-breaking additions to this group of stores. Over the course of this group, we'll travel from north to south, from Merrimack near Manchester down through Milford, Nashua, and Hudson. After Nashua, we're all done with New Hampshire and we move west to Vermont! FYI...  July's 10th year feature has sadly been delayed because of adding stuff to Nashua, so keep an eye out for two coming in August!

  The Market Report is moving into southern-central New Hampshire, with a look at the areas surrounding Manchester, Hillsborough, and Keene! Once again, this isn't an area I have a lot of coverage of, so it'll be rather brief. We begin in Hooksett, just north of Manchester, then make stops in Manchester and Bedford. From there, we'll head west via Hillsborough to Keene. Come back on Monday for a look at our first store!

  Welcome back from summer break! The Market Report now comes to New Hampshire (or, technically, returns ) with a look at the kind of middle of the state. We'll visit a couple stores in Northwood, about 20 miles inland from Portsmouth, then pass through the city of Concord and then turn north towards Laconia. While we're in this area, we'll also take a stop by West Lebanon, which is right on the border of Vermont. This is a short group -- New Hampshire has not that many supermarkets, of course, because it's generally a small and rural/wilderness state -- and I simply haven't spent that much time here. So come back tomorrow for a look at a small-town Hannaford! Plus, during summer break... Here's what you may have missed: New posts! Patel Brothers and Shaw's each remodel Massachusetts locations Check on work wrapping up at SuperFresh and Food Universe stores H Mart reopens a New Jersey store Visit a brand-new South Jersey ShopRite See two new locations of a...

  Continuing the celebration of The Market Report's 10th year! Each month of 2026, I'll be posting a different special feature to celebrate my 10th year of writing this blog. If you haven't been keeping up with the features... January: Remembering A&P February: Best of 2016-2020 March: Back in Time ( Day 1 , Day 2 , Day 3 ) April: Recommended Reading May: Behind the Scenes Now it's time for the second half of the "Best of" post, with a look at 2021-2025. These are some of my own favorite posts and stores, so I recommend going back and reading or re-reading them if you are interested. After this, it'll be time for our summer break! Best of 2021 Kings Food Markets (various locations) Various posts Albertsons Companies officially took over Kings Food Markets, a New Jersey-based chain with locations in that state along with New York and Connecticut, in January 2021. Over the following months, I had fun tracking the changes at the various stores as the...

Having completed our (relatively brief) trip through the southern part of Maine, let's check out some of the absolutely gorgeous area that we've seen supermarkets in. You can browse all of the stores here . Lincolnville, ME  - Where the forest meets the coast, or at least one of many places here in Maine where those two come together, is Lincolnville. Lush greenery inland and rocky beaches make up the scenery here in Lincolnville, which is about five miles east of Lincolnville Center . Belfast, ME  - Belfast's quaint coastal downtown is home to several old-fashioned businesses (or, perhaps in the spirit of the storefront above, old-school). Here's a look at the very pastel Colonial theater in town, along with Colburn, the oldest shoe store in America. The sloped main street goes down towards the water, and a long faded Coca-Cola advertisement facing the water is still faintly visible on one of the old brick buildings. Main Street ends at a picturesque marina on the Belf...