Whether you’re looking for a custom birthday cake, a crusty baguetteor a batch of chocolate chip cookies, you can likely find them at your local grocery chain for an affordable price. Grocery giants like Kroger and Whole Foods sell a wide variety of baked goods, and if you’re going to a great supermarket, their staff members often bake many of these products fresh onsite.

Kroger and Whole Foods have well-loved bakery departments that have become especially popular thanks to their cake offerings. But if you live near both, don’t know which store to choose, or are trying to decide if one is worth trying out, which chain is actually better? It may depend on what you’re looking for.

Just like the overall store setup, the bakery sections at each of these supermarkets are different. Kroger offers affordable items at 1,238 stores primarily located in the Midwest and Southern United States, while Whole Foods provides slightly more expensive (and often organic) products at only 528 locations across 46 states.

Whether you’re searching for a personalized birthday cake, something that channels current trends, or the most affordable option, one of these two grocery icons is better suited to your needs.

Trending flavors take the lead at Whole Foods

When it comes to baked goods, Whole Foods and Kroger offer a similar range, including cookies, cakes, and breads. What makes the options at each store more distinct is the flavor profiles and formats they choose to highlight in each of these areas. Overall, Whole Foods bakery items feel more modern, while Kroger’s seem more nostalgic.

You can count on Kroger for classics like Boston cream pies and pillowy angel food cakes that are ready to be topped with fresh fruit. Head to Whole Foods for more inventive desserts, like a Brown Butter Cookie Caramel Crunch Cake and Chocolate Eruption Cake (a layered cake with chocolate buttercream, chocolate mousse, and an elegant chocolate drip down the sides).

The chains offer different takes on bakery staples, and each has a handful of standout items that customers consistently love. The Whole Foods bakery is perhaps best known for its Berry Chantilly Cakea vanilla cake studded with fresh berries and topped with airy Chantilly cream. The cake is often featured on social media and has proven so popular that Whole Foods even turned it into a Berry Chantilly Latte.

Kroger also has a few verified hits. Redditors recommend the bakery’s croissant bread — especially for crafting buttery grilled cheeses — chocolate croissantsand chewy Soft Top cookieswhich come in flavors like banana nut chocolate chip, apple cinnamon, and pumpkin chocolate chip.

The ingredient list at these two stores isn’t the same

If you’re looking for baked goods that contain minimally processed ingredients, Whole Foods is your best bet. For in-store-baked items, Whole Foods uses cage-free eggs (or higher-grade eggs) and unbleached, unbromated flour. The Amazon-owned chain also avoids using hydrogenated fats in its recipes.

At Kroger, it’s much more likely you’ll come across ingredients like bleached flour, vegetable shortening, and occasionally artificial dyes in an ingredient list, such as in the new Four Layer Cinnamon Roll Cake.

Kroger wins when it comes to custom cakes

You might not own icing and a piping bag — or trust yourself to squeeze all the letters in “Happy Birthday” gracefully onto a cake — and that’s exactly what your grocery store’s bakery department is here to help with.

You’ll need to call or visit your local store for a customized Whole Foods cake, though some locations sell ready-to-buy sheet cakes that simply read “Happy Birthday” or “Congratulations” and can be ordered online.

Custom cakes are easy to order on Kroger’s website, and the store offers a wide variety of customization options at very reasonable prices. For example, you can order an eight-inch round layer cake that feeds around 20 people — with your selection of cake flavor and border icing colors — and displays an edible printed photo across the top for just $28.

This is just one of many options you can modify to fit your preferences, and you’re not limited to plain layer or sheet cakes. Kroger offers layered carrot cakes, red velvet cakes, and German chocolate cakes that can be decorated with a piped message on top. ( complex, themed designs may need to be ordered in person at a Kroger store.)

These supermarkets have a noticeable difference in price

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kroger beats Whole Foods in terms of affordability in its bakery department. Prices can vary by location, but a five-inch Chocolate Eruption Cake will cost you about $14 at Whole Foods — granted, it has more decor on top — while a six-inch chocolate cake is priced around $6 at Kroger.

Remember the difference in the ingredient lists between these two stores? The use of elements like hydrogenated oils or bleached flour is often crucial for enabling a store to offer light, moist, and delicious baked goods at an affordable price. But for some shoppers, paying extra for the ingredient list you get at Whole Foods might be worth it.

The prices of other products, such as cookies and bread, also tend to be lower at Kroger. An in-house baguette, for example, will run you $1.49. At Whole Foods, a similar baguette costs $2.99.

At both supermarkets, you can opt to pay more for specialty versions of bakery staples. In addition to its own baguettes, Kroger offers La Brea Bakery’s crusty, slender loaves for $2.99. Baguettes from the Balthazar or Pain d’Avignon bakeries, both sold at Whole Foods locations in New York City, cost $3.99 and $4.49, respectively. This means you can acquire premium items without having to make a second stop at another bakery after you’ve already gone to the grocery store.

We always support heading to independent, local bakeries when possible, but the baked goods you find at major stores like these are often the most affordable and accessible options, and they can be surprisingly delicious. No matter what your priorities are, one of these popular destinations is sure to deliver the breakfast items, desserts, and treats you’re searching for.