This report proposes procedures for answering four questions: 1) Do food costs differ enough by region to justify geographical variations in the value of distributed food stamps? (2) How much does the cost of a market basket vary by the location and kind of supermarket where it was purchased? (3) For the same quantity, how much does the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan mix differ from that reported for food stamp households by the Nationwide Food Consumption Survey? (4) What factors explain differences in cost indexes observed among sample supermarkets for the NFCS based market basket?