A weekly grocery shop for a Vienna household cost around €76 in March 2026, according to the Vienna Chamber of Labour's (AK) price monitor, 5.5% less than a year earlier, but still 49% higher than before the 2021 inflation surge. The single biggest lever against high prices is still simple: shop discounters over supermarkets, and store brands over name brands. Supermarkets are on average 10.1% more expensive than Hofer, Lidl and similar discounters, and switching to store brands at Billa or Spar saves up to €24 per shop, or roughly €1,000 a year. That's exactly where mitbringen helps: the app automatically builds your cheapest weekly basket from the latest deals at Hofer, Lidl, Spar and Billa.
Vienna's Chamber of Labour (Arbeiterkammer Wien) tracks the 40 cheapest everyday grocery and household items across seven Vienna chains (Billa, Billa Plus, Spar, Interspar, Hofer, Lidl, Penny) every month. The March 2026 results:
Source: AK Wien price monitor, March 2026, reported by wien.ORF.at.
The AK price monitor confirms what many Vienna households already suspect from experience: full-range supermarkets are 10.1% more expensive on average than discounters. Comparing prices across Hofer, Lidl, Spar and Billa instead of always shopping the same chain claws back a real share of the 49% price increase since 2021, without giving up brand or quality choice.
A companion study by the Upper Austria Chamber of Labour (AK Oberösterreich) tracked two shopping baskets of 20 products each: one with name brands, one with the cheaper store-brand alternative, monthly from March to July 2026, across the same four chains. Switching consistently to store brands saved anywhere from a few cents to over €20 per weekly shop, depending on the chain:
| Chain | Savings per shop (store brand vs. name brand) |
|---|---|
| Billa | €19.59 – €23.03 |
| Spar | €19.88 – €21.36 |
| Lidl | €7.59 – €10.03 |
| Hofer | €0.15 – €4 (its range is already discount-priced) |
Visualized, savings potential per chain looks like this:
Bars show the savings range per shop (store brand vs. name brand) on a 0–25 € scale. Data: see table above.
Projected over a year, several outlets report this adds up to as much as €1,000 per household. Product-level examples: peas (up to €4.62 difference), rice (€3.62), bread (€2.32), and spaghetti (€1.91).
Source: AK Oberösterreich, "Store brands instead of name brands", reported by 5min.at and help.ORF.at.
Three structural reasons explain why groceries cost noticeably more in Austria than, say, in Germany:
Food inflation did ease through 2026, per Statistics Austria, from roughly 2.4–2.7% in March/April down to about 1.5–2.2% by May/June, while headline inflation stayed at 3.4–3.7% due to energy and services costs. (Statistics Austria, June 2026 flash estimate)
The numbers make one thing clear: comparing chains and choosing store brands can claw back a real chunk of the price increases, but nobody has time to flip through four weekly flyers by hand. That's exactly what mitbringen does for you: we track every deal at Hofer, Lidl, Spar and Billa and automatically build your cheapest possible shopping basket, no paper flyers required. We read the flyers, so you can bring the savings home.
Example: store brand vs. name brand
Illustrative figures from the AK Oberösterreich comparison (see source above), not a mitbringen price claim. This is roughly what part of your auto-sorted mitbringen list could look like.
mitbringen automatically builds your cheapest weekly basket from this week's deals at Hofer, Lidl, Spar and Billa, free, and set up in under a minute.
On average, yes: discounters are 10.1% cheaper than supermarkets per the AK price monitor, and Hofer had the lowest total basket price among all four chains in several months of the store-brand comparison. But the gap between its name-brand and store-brand prices is the smallest, because its whole range is already discount-priced; switching to store brands pays off more at Billa and Spar.
Up to €1,000 per household per year, according to AK Oberösterreich, depending on shopping habits and preferred chain.
mitbringen automatically compares this week's deals at Hofer, Lidl, Spar and Billa and builds your personal, cheapest shopping basket directly, instead of you having to search through several flyers or websites yourself.
Connect mitbringen to your favourite stores and get your personal savings basket, automatically, every week.
All price and savings figures in this article come from the original sources linked above (Arbeiterkammer, Statistik Austria) and are not claims made by mitbringen itself.
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