Consumer Reports' Pick For The Best Grocery Store Chain On The West Coast Might Surprise You

Sometimes it's hard to make your way through a world where you're constantly being advertised to. Something as simple as choosing a brand of potato chips will have close to a dozen different brands competing for your attention; not to mention your money. (At least you can check our ranking of the best BBQ potato chip brands.) Thank goodness, then, for Consumer Reports: An independent, non-profit organization devoted to testing products and stores to help the modern consumer make the best possible choice. If you live on the West Coast and you're looking for a supermarket, you have two primary choices, according to Consumer Reports: Gelson's or Trader Joe's.

Both Gelson's and Trader Joe's were founded in California, and both of them earned a score of 87 out of 100. Gelson's is a high-end supermarket chain founded in Burbank in 1951 and it gets predictably high marks for its quality and range of products, with the competitiveness of its prices being its biggest weakness. Trader Joe's, on the other hand, has a great score for price competitiveness as well as for the quality of its store-brand products, but it got dinged for its middling meat and produce quality in addition to its relative lack of locally-sourced products. Which one you go to depends, as it so often does, on your budget and your taste in food. (If you do go to Trader Joe's, try to pick up one of the beloved items in the Trader Joe's Hall of Fame.)

Of course, Gelson's and Trader Joe's aren't your only two options. There are a number of other grocery store chains that got scores in the 80s from Consumer Reports. Take, for instance, New Seasons Market, a Portland, Oregon-based chain of stores that specialize in organic products, which earned an 86 (like Gelson's, it got a 1 out of 5 for its prices). Also with an 86 is Costco, the cost-efficient wholesale store which offers all sorts of groceries — to say nothing of its classic $1.50 food court hot dogs.

Just below Costco (as well as the Military Commissary, which is run by the U.S. government for current officers and veterans) is the similarly-named WinCo (which earned an 85 from Consumer Reports) and Aldi, that well-loved German supermarket chain where you can get some unexpectedly fancy foods (Aldi got an 84). Toward the bottom of the scale is Safeway (which earned a 72 from CR with demerits for unhelpful employees and slow checkout speeds) and Walmart, which gets great scores for its competitive prices but some pretty low scores elsewhere, including in store cleanliness. Walmart ended up with a 70, which may not sound that much lower than 87, but go to a Walmart and then to a Gelson's and tell us you don't see a huge difference.