Grocery Hunt: Cheese and pickles and what not

Hello! Welcome to Week 19 of the Grocery Hunt, Manchester Ink Link’s guide to Manchester-area grocery stores.

Each week, we ask our readers to give us five specific grocery items and five separate Manchester-area grocery stores so we could find the prices and availability of those items.

We’re also tracking the prices and availability of each item week by week with the hopes of finding the local grocery store with the best prices and best availability for items that our readers are looking for.

Before we begin, here are some caveats.

  • All prices were checked on Tuesday, May 11 from approximately 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Prices and item availability may change without notice.
  • Items may have been available during the aforementioned time but could not be found. Within this column, all efforts available to an ordinary grocery shopper were made to find the item. If you see an error here, please e-mail a picture of the item and the price tag to andy@manchesterinklink.com
  • Unless asked for a specifically-sized item by a reader, situations where stores have different sizes of the exact same item will be compared by weight or volume. If stores have multiple variations of an item with differing prices, the lowest price will be used.

Velveeta (2 lbs.)

Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – $7.48

Target: 220 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – $7.99

Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – $7.99

Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $9.49

Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – $9.99

Betty Crocker Cake Mix (15.2 oz. box)

Target: 220 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – $1.39

Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – $1.44

Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $1.89

Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – $1.99

Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – 2 for $5

Pickle spears (store brand, 24 oz.)

Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – $1.67

Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $1.89

Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – 2 for $5

Target: 220 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – $3.49

Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – 2 for $4

We went by the price on the right

Truly Hard Seltzer (12 pack)

Target: 220 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – $13.99

Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – $14.48

Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – $14.99

Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $15.99

Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – $15.99

Hostess Cupcakes

Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – $2.86

Target: 220 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – $2.99

Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – $2.99

Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – $3.49

Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – $3.99

Number of times when a store had the best price on a particular item (Year-to-Date) (After Week 19)

Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – 27

Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – 24.33

Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – 13.33

Aldi: 1111 S. Willow St., Manchester, NH – 7.5

Target: 220 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – 4

Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – 2

Price Rite: 365 Lincoln St., Manchester, NH – 1.5

Hannaford: 7 Kilton Rd, Bedford, NH 03110 – 1.83

Shaw’s: 1328 Hooksett Rd., Hooksett, NH – 1

Hannaford: 140 Bicentennial Dr, Manchester, NH – .5

Bunny’s Superette: 75 Webster St., Manchester, NH – 0

Saigon Asian Market: 476 Union St., Manchester, NH – 0

Whole Foods: 121 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – 0

A Market: 125 Loring St., Manchester, NH – 0

Number of times when a store had a particular item in stock (After Week 19)

Market Basket: 460 Elm St., Manchester, NH – 71

Hannaford: 859 Hanover St., Manchester, NH – 66

Walmart: 275 Gold St., Manchester, NH – 64

Shaw’s: 570 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH – 38

Target: 220 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – 24

Aldi: 1111 S. Willow St., Manchester, NH – 13

Price Rite: 365 Lincoln St., Manchester, NH – 8

Hannaford: 140 Bicentennial Dr, Manchester, NH – 7

Shaw’s: 1328 Hooksett Rd., Hooksett, NH – 8

Hannaford: 7 Kilton Rd, Bedford, NH 03110 – 3

Whole Foods: 121 S River Rd, Bedford, NH – 2

Bunny’s Superette: 75 Webster St., Manchester, NH – 1

Saigon Asian Market: 476 Union St., Manchester, NH – 0

A Market: 125 Loring St., Manchester, NH – 0

Previous Grocery Hunts