Report: Wal-Mart food prices going up

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Walmart

April 15, 2010

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Wal-Mart and Whole Foods -- the nation's lowest- and highest-priced big grocers, respectively -- have inched a little closer together.

Wal-Mart, despite launching an aggressive marketing campaign this month touting its price cuts, or "rollbacks,"on supermarket items, has actually raised its prices on food by 2.3 percent since February, according to a new study by JPMorgan Securities.

Meanwhile, Whole Foods has stuck with a price-cutting strategy, lowering its prices by about five percentage points since December vs. mainstream grocers like Kroger and Safeway, the study found.

The recent 2.3-percent increase in Wal-Mart's prices from February follows a 1.9-percent uptick between January and February, he added.

Despite the recent increase, Wal-Mart's prices remain 12 percent lower than those of traditional grocers, while Whole Foods' prices are about 14 percent higher.

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