I love it when the grocers start tripping over each other to show the consumer how good their prices are. With the economy crawling ever so slowly upward into a post-Recession mentality
, there are still far too many individuals struggling to find footing. The grocery chains, much like the restaurants, are trying to capture some of the action. Earlier this month we saw the beginning round of pricing. Now we are hearing from Stop & Shop and Giant Food about the “real deal.” This terminology makes me wonder how long they sat with an ad agency to come up with something more than just a “deal.” Maybe it should have been titled “reality.”
What do these new pricing strategies mean? As far as I can tell after a mini-aisle cruise, products are tagged with multiple layers of prices–what it used to cost v. the new price and what a nearby national brand competitor (often Safeway) is charging. The gloves are off.
In the Chicago area, it’s Jewel v. Dominick’s, and the focus is on rolled back prices.
No matter where you live, we are all in this grocery pricing life. With Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and Trader Joe’s competing with traditional grocers, there is some hope for further reductions. As consumers the questions we should ask are: Why were the prices so high in the first place? How do we continue to get them to come down? Overpaying is the name of the game as purchasers continue to feed conglomerates. Some hope is on the horizon as lowered pricing continues to garner attention.
Maybe we just don’t shop the way we used to. Maybe we are smarter, and the chains are just starting to understand that consumers have become savvier and have learned to be more better shoppers; less impulsive.
Maybe, just maybe, the pricing wars will continue, and we, as consumers, will benefit from further reductions.
The mushroom varietal list includes many you may never have heard of, varieties you most likely have never seen; I hadn’t, but wow are they terrific. Don’t worry the store can make shopping for specialty foods an experience you’ll remember. There are spices galore, dried fruits, capers, olives, and teas to get you started fantasizing. This is the type of shopping that makes home cooking such a pleasurable experience. I came for the mushrooms; I’ll return for the catalog of possibilities.
We’ve all been in the situation where we ask the purveyor, fish counter person: When did that piece of fish come in? How many times have you heard the answer: Just this morning. Or, maybe they say, last evening. Our suspicions run to the top burner as we are never certain. Oh, yes, there are obvious eye tests of freshness as in color, shape, and form. Some people even like to touch the fish to test its firmness and maybe even smell it. Nothing holds a candle to the newest advance that promises greater reliability.
It seems no one wants to be ignored on 
All those times you are a bag short or even minus the recyclable bags which are overheating in the trunk of the car, you’ve been able to put your merchandise in a store paper bag as more places have phased out plastic. Some stores, like 
Let’s argue with the calendar: The summer mindset has kicked in. It’s as if everyone turned on his grill at the same time. Wonderful smells waft thru the neighborhoods and the stores are filled with an air of excitement–everyone’s asking what are you doing this weekend?
Sometimes in the process of amusing ourselves, we figure out ways to save money. That’s true with the new grocery scanners–no, I do not mean self check-out–that’s been around. I mean the scanner gun–the weapon of choice for those looking to save time and watch how much they are spending.
No matter how cheery we try to sound, people are realistically worried about the future and high costs. 