Here’s where to get the cheapest tailgate groceries for Texas football weekends
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Price Check
Looking for the best deals around Fort Worth? Let us check for you.
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It’s that time of year again when fans turn into couch potatoes to watch Texas’ favorite sport: NFL and college football.
And what goes better with football than all the indulgent snacks?
However, football is on TV five days a week in the fall, so the food can really add up.
According to the National Retail Federation, American consumers spent around $91.58 per person on food and beverages while watching the 2025 Super Bowl from home.
For our price check, we determined a 27-item football tailgate grocery list with snacks like potato chips or pigs in a blanket and also meal items like hot dogs and hamburgers.
We found the cheapest option for a football tailgate basket cost $91.10 from WinCo. Let’s take a look at the numbers in depth.
Methodology
To gather the data, our team created a shopping list of 27 football tailgate ingredients.
At all seven stores, we looked at the cheapest brands– this usually ended up being the store’s generic brand. Of course, to make all the data consistent, we compared items that were the same value in weight (and if not, we calculated the price by weight to make all data consistent).
However, there are a few specifics you should know.
- No sale, clearance, or membership items were noted. We only used the standard price to ensure a fair estimate across all brands.
- Aldi did not carry Lays or Michelob brands. Instead we noted a generic bag of potato chips and a 12-pack of 12-ounce Shiner bottles.
- Tom Thumb’s generic brand is labeled as “Signature” or “Lucerne” for dairy products.
- Aldi’s cheapest brand is commonly “Friendly Farms” or “Simply Nature.”
- H-E-B generic brand is “H-E-B,” but their cheapest option is sometimes “Hill Country Fare.”
- Target generic brands can be found under “Good & Gather” or “Favorite Day” for dairy products.
- Walmart’s generic brand is “Great Value.”
- Kroger generic brand is “Kroger” or a discount brand they carry is “Smart Save.”
Lastly, it’s important to know which Fort Worth locations we shopped at.
- Aldi: 8977 Tehama Ridge Parkway
- H-E-B: 3451 Heritage Trace Parkway
- Kroger: 3300 Texas Sage Trail
- Target: 301 Carroll St.
- Tom Thumb: 2400 W 7th St.
- Walmart: 2245 Jacksboro Highway
- WinCo: 8968 Tehama Ridge Parkway
Where to shop for the football tailgate ingredients
Note: This is not a scientific study, but it is a real reflection of items’ prices at various stores in Fort Worth during the week of Sept. 15, 2025.
Out of the seven stores we shopped at, we found that WinCo is the best option. Since some stores did not carry all 27 items, we based our overall ranking on the total basket price for items that every store carried.
Ranking the seven from least expensive to most expensive we found the following totals for our grocery list:
- WinCo: $91.10
- Aldi: $91.78
- Walmart: $99.64
- Target: $110.77
- H-E-B: $115.62
- Kroger: $127.00
- Tom Thumb: $143.19
Key takeaways for football tailgate shopping in Fort Worth
Some data analysis in this story was conducted using AI. For more information on how the Star-Telegram and McClatchy newsrooms are using AI, go here.
Key takeaways from the data analysis show:
- Aldi had the cheapest prices for 11 items. WinCo also had the lowest price for 11 items. Kroger and Tom Thumb had zero items with the lowest price.
- Aldi is great for pantry staples (baked beans, brownie mix).
- WinCo is the best option for Charcoal and paper plates, plastic cups and cutlery. The store also stood out for their frozen chicken wings price.
- Walmart is the best option for a bag of ice.
- Aldi, WinCo and Walmart consistently mark the lowest prices.
- Kroger and Tom Thumb are never the cheapest option and remain the most expensive.
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