A rant about supermarket prices

[realFedUp]

If you shop for food on a regular basis
you must know that prices have gone up on
almost everything. I shop at a Ralphs
owned by Krogers in So. Cal. I don't think
that the prices are higher because of the
recent strikes, but maybe they are....
maybe it's higher gas prices...
comments from other shoppers are welcome.
I don't buy produce anymore from mainstream
markets.

just an example...a 12 oz package of Nabisco
oyster crackers (no they don't have oysters
in them, just flour and water) were $3.99.
Hello?

No one is really talking about inflation, but
it's out there.

[progressivebydesign]

1. Yeah.. six dollar cereal, 2.99 for broccoli.. it sucks! N/T

[realFedUp]

3. Yeah....cereal is a prime example

What's there to cereal but sugar, flour, dye and
some sprayed on vitamins?

[elehhhhna]

2. Our grocery store's raised everything about 15% recently,

and I almost choked when i heard some newsie recently saying there is no indication of inflation of consumer prices, but THE FED DID NOT INCLUDE prices for groceries and gasoline in their figuring, because those prices are too volatile!!! PLEASE!

Fuzzy Math, Anyone?

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. Does anyone know

if the the Fed has included prices for groceries and gasoline in the past? If so, when did they change policy? :shrug:

[OneBlueSky]

4. not only that, but the packages are getting smaller . . .

the quantities of virtually all packaged foods have been shrinking for years, and continue to do so . . . a can of coffee used to be a pound . . . then it was 13 ounces . . . for some brands, it's now 11.5 ounces . . . half gallons of Breyer's ice cream are no longer half gallons . . . and on, and on, and on . . . and they still continue to raise the prices . . .

[Sabriel]

6. How 'bout dem dairy prices?

I was paying $1.49/lb. for butter, $1.89/gallon for 1%. Not anymore! It's almost double now.

[napi21]

7. There's a lot of reasons for the increased prices.

Gas prices are part of the problem, because everything has to be moved from where it grows to where it's either made into something or packaged, and then on to your supermarket. Every one of those trucks have radically increased costs because of fuel. Another BIG cost is the MAD cow disease scare. The US has not been permitted to import Canadian, Austrailian, etc. beef for quqite a few months. The poultry industry has been affected by the Bird virus in the same way.

Believe me, it's not wages at the supermarket! The actual cost of the products has increased dramatically. I know, I work for one in the SE. It doesn't matter where you are located, it's the same situation.

[thinkingwoman]

8. it's been happening for almost a year

here in the midwest. I think the 15% estimate is a good one for local prices over the past 6 months.

The reason? Gas prices.

[WatchWhatISay]

9. I think one of the main reasons

is something that no one seems to be paying attention to. Grocery stores have been downsizing the number of brands they stock for any one item. Years ago you had a choice of several.

For example, the other day I went to buy charcoal for outdoor cooking. There were about 5 different kinds of Kingsford charcoal and a couple of types of Kroger brand. The large bag of Kingsford charcoal was 8.99 and the Kroger charcoal was 6.99. I seems only a short time ago that I was thinking charcoal was too expensive at 3.99 a bag. That's what they have been heading toward for some time. The less competition from brands, the more control they have over the price. So they usually stock one or two pricey brands and their own brand, whose price continually climbs in order to chase the inflated prices on the pricey brand.

The other day when I went shopping the cashier asked me how I was doing when I walked up. I said, Fine, how are you? He actually replied in this fashion - Oh, I'm terrific now that I'm here a Kroger and happy to be serving customers like you.

I leaned over and whispered to him, Be careful, you are becoming a corporate robot. He didn't seem to understand, so I said, you know, like a Stepford Checker. I told him that I'm sure they werent paying him enough to own that big a piece of him.

After that conversation died down, he asked if I had found everything I need. So I told him, no, I hadn't, because I was disturbed about the number of brands they were no longer carrying and that the reduction in number of brands seemed to correspond to the increase in prices over the last few years. I asked him to compare increasing price of food with increasing price of cars over the last few years.

Later he revealed to me that he watched Fox News exclusively. I asked, Oh, you mean because they are so fair and balanced? He said he knew that they leaned right but that it was fair because all the other media leaned left. I said, No, none of them lean left, they all lean corporate. He said he'd have to think about that.

[Speck Tater]

10. I haven't noticed very much change at all...

But I don't buy canned, packaged or prepared foods. I think that out of the 16 or 18 aisles in the local supermarket I have only ever visited 3 of them. The trick is to buy the kind of stuff your great grandparents bought. That kind of food is so out of style that they have to keep the prices down to sell it. For the price of 3 Atkins-approved low-carb TV dinners I can buy 15 pounds of rice. (that's rice rice, not boxed, processed Uncle Ben's Instant rice product substitute.)

[realFedUp]

11. Like canned corned beef?

Spam?

Buy a cow. Not the mad kind :-)

[napi21]

13. To a degree you are right, but not totally.

Rice & beans are still inexpensive, but surely you don't eat plain boiled rice. Produce prices are astronomical, even the foods that are in season. Look out if you want some milk at almost $4.00 gal. Or butter at $5.00 lb. And then of course there's pricing on meats. First it was just beef, then pork. Sometimes the only thing I buy is chicken. You see, I do buy products like my grandparents used to buy, and I cook almost everything from scratch. I always check vegetables, and most of the time it's a lot cheaper to buy frozen.

Certainly your advice not to buy "skillet supper", or "boil in a bag", or "ready to serve". They are a lot more expensive, and don't save very much time at all.

No, there's a lot more to what's been happening than shoppers just not muying the right things.

[greekspeak]

12. Must be the Clenis

It cannot possibly be the infallable Republican leadership in government. The democrats are basically powerless in Washington right now. So the evil, dastardly Clenis must have struck again.

In all seriousness, the last two times I have gone to the grocery store, my order has been relatively small, and still ran nearly $90. I am not buying Filet Mignon here people; I make simple meals, mostly from scratch. I used to buy a lot of frozen meals, pre-prepared items, for convenience for the same prices.

How convenient that gas and food, two commodities on which Americans spend outrageous amounts of money, are excluded from figuring inflation. Any inflation report that does not include them is valueless.