The Chronicle did some real service journalism for you this week, surveying the city's grocery scene in these inflationary times, and telling you just where you can find the cheapest avocados, bread, and milk.

Now, it should be said that San Francisco has no shortage of gourmet grocers, and no shortage of shoppers who are willing to pay a bit more to ensure the quality of their ground beef, chicken, and produce. It's an urbane city with high incomes, and we've all read enough horror stories about what cows are fed on industrial farms, and heard about the recalls of E.coli-tainted bagged salad from Trader Joe's.

But we all like to bargain hunt, and many of us haven't seen our paychecks go up in pace with the price of food. So the Chronicle's latest piece, surveying a dozen grocery stores that serve San Francisco, including local chains like Gus's, Bi-Rite, and Mollie Stone's, ethnic-focused markets like H Mart and Casa Guadalupe, as well as national chains like Safeway, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe's. Grocery Outlet, the bargain grocer based in Emeryville that often sells overstock from other chains, is the only discount chain in the mix.

Another local discount grocery chain, the Mission District's Foods Co., was not included in the Chronicle's survey.

And, no surprise here: Grocery Outlet is the cheapest across the board. The Chronicle put together a basket of staples — milk, eggs, ground beef, strawbery jam, white bread, yellow onions, avocadoes — and went all 12 stores, trying to purchase comparable items and making adjustments for item sizes. The result: You can get in and out of Grocery Outlet with all these items for less than half what you'd pay at Bi-Rite or Luke's Local — $24, versus $57 or $54 respectively. But, again, you'll need to settle for industrial, non-organic ground beef, and one-step-above-generic white sandwich bread, which I'm guessing most of you aren't doing.

Bi-Rite, with its limited shelf space and concentration on local, sustainable, and organic products, is at a disadvantage when it comes to items like strawberry jam and bread. Their cheapest white bread, the Chronicle notes, is an eight-dollar loaf of Dave’s Killer Bread. And their cheapest strawberry jam? Also eight dollars.

And, yes, some products just vary in price, even if they are arguably the same quality. Organic avocado prices are all over the map, but Bi-Rite is still charging the most ($3.50 per).

Luke's Local comes in second for most expensive, with Gus's and Mollie Stone's just behind.

The second cheapest market in the land? Lucky.

Take this information as you will, and be glad if you live near one of these cheaper stores, because you can at least go grab your basics there and not feel like you're being gouged every time.