No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Loblaws, Fortinos, and Zehrs are all Loblaw Companies banners. Most shoppers assume the discount banner is cheaper across the board and the premium banner is dearer across the board. We checked that assumption the only way that's fair: identical products — same brand, same pack — at named branches, on the same days.
Prices below were observed between June 23 and 26, 2026 at the branches listed — most in the GTA, with Fortinos and Zehrs branches in Hamilton, Burlington, Guelph, and Uxbridge because those banners don't operate inside Toronto. They are a snapshot, not a claim about today; Loblaw prices vary by branch and change weekly. Verify at the store.
Identical item, five banners
| Item | No Frills | Superstore | Loblaws | Fortinos | Zehrs | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No Name 100% Whole Wheat Bread, 675 g | $2.48 (Don Mills Rd) | — ¹ | $2.50 (Yonge St) | $2.29 (Rymal Rd, Hamilton) | $2.50 (Woodbine Ave) | $0.21 |
| No Name Salted Butter, 454 g | $6.00 (Yonge St, Richmond Hill) | $5.99 (Oakville) | $5.99 (Dupont St) | $5.99 (New St, Burlington) | $5.99 (Guelph) | $0.01 |
| Suraj Aged Basmati Rice, 3.63 kg | $7.99 on sale (Ritson Rd, Oshawa) | $10.00 (Argentia Rd) | $10.00 (Bayly St) | — ² | $10.00 (Guelph) | $2.01, all of it the sale |
| Pampers Swaddlers Size 2, 144 ct | $34.99 on sale (Kingston Rd) | — | — ³ | $34.99 on sale (Lawrence Ave W) | $39.99 (Uxbridge) | $5.00, all of it the sale |
¹ Superstore's branch listed a 520 g loaf, not 675 g — different product, excluded. ² Fortinos listed a different basmati (see below). ³ Loblaws listed Size 3, not Size 2 — excluded.
Read that table twice. On the two items with no sale running — bread and butter — five banners with different reputations land within 21 cents and 1 cent of each other. The only meaningful gaps are a No Frills rice sale and a diaper sale that happened to be running at two banners that week.
Looks like a gap, isn't one
This is the comparison most price sites get wrong, and it's why Shelfbee matches products at the pack level before it compares anything.
| Item | Sticker price | What you actually get | Per kg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sufra Halal Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast — No Frills | $21.00 | 1.075 kg | $19.53 |
| Same product — Superstore, Loblaws, Zehrs | $30.00 | 1.505 kg | $19.53 |
A $9 "saving" that is exactly 430 grams of chicken. Same price per kilogram at all four banners, to the cent.
| Item | Sticker price | What you actually get | Per kg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dainty Basmati Rice — Fortinos | $6.99 | 900 g | $7.77 |
| Suraj Aged Basmati Rice — Superstore, Loblaws, Zehrs | $10.00 | 3.63 kg | $2.75 |
The cheapest sticker on the shelf is the most expensive rice by weight, by a factor of nearly three.
Same category, different house brand
The other place the banners genuinely differ is which product they put on the shelf for a staple.
| 4 L 2% milk | Brand stocked | Price |
|---|---|---|
| No Frills (Kingston Rd) | Dairyland | $5.81 |
| Superstore (Mississauga Heartland) | Beatrice | $6.24 |
| Loblaws (Kent St W) | Beatrice | $6.35 |
| Zehrs (Tower St S) | Neilson | $6.44 |
| Fortinos (Lawrence Ave W) | Neilson | $6.49 |
A 68-cent spread on the most-bought item in the store — but it's three different cartons, not one carton priced five ways. Extra-lean ground beef tells the same story: Butcher's Choice at $10.00 (No Frills, Superstore), grass-fed at $11.50 (Loblaws, Zehrs), PC Certified Angus at $12.49 (Fortinos). The banner "premium" is largely a different product.
What this means for a Tuesday-night shop
- On an identical item, don't drive between Loblaw banners. The difference is cents; the fuel isn't.
- The real money is in sales and pack size, not in banner choice — and a sale at one banner is usually not running at its siblings that week.
- Compare per kilogram or per unit, not per sticker. The chicken example above is the whole argument for why Shelfbee groups products by pack before it ranks them, and why every offer shows its pack size next to its price.
Shelfbee's ranking adds one more number to the sticker: what the trip costs you in distance and time. On these items, that number decides more than the banner does.
Method: prices read from each banner's own website for the branches named, June 23–26, 2026, as part of Shelfbee's weekly catalog refresh. "Identical" means the same brand and pack size as listed by the retailer. Items where the banners listed different products or pack sizes are shown separately, not silently compared. This is a snapshot of observed prices at specific branches, not a statement about the lowest price available anywhere; prices may differ at the store.