The cheapest calories at Biedronka are sugar and oil. We counted złoty per 1000 kcal

The cheapest thousand calories at Biedronka cost 49 groszy. You buy them in flour, with sugar and oil right behind, the products that hold almost nothing but pure energy. We counted the cost of 1000 kcal for 151 products in our base, and one uncomfortable rule fell out of it.

In an earlier post about price per kilogram we flagged one thing: per kilogram sweets look expensive, but per calorie they'd look better, because they're calorie-dense. Now we're closing that promise and counting the calories directly. The cheapest calories really do exist, they just hold nothing but energy.

The cheapest calories are empty

At the very bottom of the price per calorie sit three kinds of empty calories, flour, sugar and oil (the maths: package price divided by its full energy):

• Plony natury type 450 cake flour 1 kg: 0.49 zł per 1000 kcal (1.79 zł/kg)
• Diamant white sugar 1 kg: 0.51 zł per 1000 kcal (1.99 zł/kg)
• Wyborny sunflower oil 1 l: 0.96 zł per 1000 kcal (7.99 zł/l)

Sugar is just sugar, oil is just fat, flour is just starch. No protein worth mentioning, no fibre, no vitamins. You're paying purely for energy, and that's exactly why it's this cheap.

Calories that give you something

Real food starts a few groszy higher, but for those groszy you get protein and fibre:

• Vitanella mountain oat flakes 1 kg: 1.37 zł per 1000 kcal (4.99 zł/kg)
• Dobrusia fusilli pasta 1 kg: 1.37 zł per 1000 kcal (4.89 zł/kg)
• Plony natury red lentils 500 g: 2.96 zł per 1000 kcal (4.99 zł for 500 g)

That's from just under three to six times more per calorie than sugar. Groats, pasta, oats and legumes in our base land in the same window, far below what the sweets shelf charges per calorie. For that money you're building a meal, not just filling the calorie counter.

What you're really paying for in a candy bar

Now the contrast. Prices checked online in July 2026:

• Snickers 50 g (3.99 zł, 240 kcal per the producer's data): 16.62 zł per 1000 kcal
• Lay's salted potato chips 130 g (8.69 zł): 12.18 zł per 1000 kcal
• Nutella 350 g (18.99 zł): 10.07 zł per 1000 kcal
• Tic tac 18 g (2.99 zł): 41.53 zł per 1000 kcal

A Snickers per kilogram is 79.80 zł, and per calorie it's 16.62 zł per 1000 kcal, so less dramatic, exactly as we flagged it would be back then. Except less dramatic isn't cheap. The bar is mostly sugar and fat inside, the same ingredients you buy separately at 0.51 and 0.96 zł per 1000 kcal. Assembled into a bar, those calories cost 16.62 zł, more than 32 times more than the sugar they came from. A Tic tac is 81 times more. You're paying for the processing, the packaging and the brand, not for calories.

A simple measure at the shelf

Here's the trap: the cheapest calories are also the emptiest. If you shopped purely for the lowest price per calorie, you'd come home with sugar and oil, the worst possible diet. And sweets and chips are the opposite, both empty and the most expensive per calorie at once.

So at the shelf, don't count calories per złoty, count protein and fibre per złoty. Sugar and oil sit at the bottom of the price precisely because there's nothing in them. Groats, oats and legumes cost a few groszy more per calorie and hand it back as protein and fibre. Those are the right pick, not the cheapest calorie on the shelf.

Snugmeal plans a week from the products that give the most nutrition per złoty, around your budget and real prices from Polish stores. It launches this autumn. Leave your address in the form just below this post, and at launch you'll get a one-time 20% discount code for your first subscription.

Data: zakupy.biedronka.pl, prices checked in July 2026, cited product prices confirmed online. Cost computed as package price divided by the package's full energy, for 151 products in our base with a stated weight and calorie value. Two dropped out: one with no weight listed on its page, one zero-calorie sweetener. Liquid products were converted to grams, oils at 0.92 g/ml, water-based drinks at 1.0. Our own calculations.