Joined: Sep 04, 2005 Posts: 396 Location: central MA, USA
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:39 am Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
Mack12345 wrote:
I would have to say that the trend in meat is NOT that less money is being spent on meat .. insted its that the money spent on meat has been DRAMATICLY restructured on a wide scale by our consumers in a relitively short amount of time .
Sales of fresh meat have dropped by very wide margins , more than pretty much anyone i know has ever seen before .
While sales of canned meat products have jumped insanely ... forceing local stores includeing my own to take mesures to keep shelves from totaly emptying of canned meat items .
Examples of canned meat products are as follows "SPAM, canned chili, canned gravy, corned beef, ect ."
My store has trippled orders of SPAM "and its Great value brand equilivant" in the last 60 days just to keep shelves from becomeing empty of these now wildly popular products .
This is a curious thing. Unless the pricing is dramatically different in your region, Spam is not a cheap meat. So unless people are buying it to hoard large quantities of what they expect is a durable food (does Spam ever go bad??), then they're just plain stupid and/or lazy.
Whole roaster chickens, in the stores I shop in anyway, are still around $1.39/lb or less on sale. Spam works out to something over $3/lb, last time I checked. So WTF?? Are the folks buying Spam just too harried to find the time to roast up a chicken? Or do they think they're saving money, without ever doing the math?
Joined: Sep 04, 2005 Posts: 396 Location: central MA, USA
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:43 am Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
JoeW wrote:
Latest update from my supermarket:
Edy's ice cream container is now only 1.5 quarts! It used to be 1/2 gallon, then 1.75 quarts, and now this. I'd love to tell the clowns running Edy's what they can do with their quart-and-a-half containers.
Most other brands are 1.75 quarts. The half-gallon container of ice cream, as we knew it, is gone forever. One of life's simplest pleasures has been downsized by corporate greed.
I noticed the 1.5 quart containers a couple of months ago, too. I expect the other brands to follow suit, sigh.
Our town finally started a farmer's market, on a very limited basis -- 3-6pm on Friday afternoons only. I've yet to be able to be able to get to it, with those hours, but my parents have gone, and have found a local source of fresh eggs (yay!) and also a local small-scale ice cream maker from a dairy farmer the next town over. He's still selling product in genuine half-gallon tubs. Alas, it's $7 a tub. But it's pretty decent ice cream -- I'd buy some to show solidarity to the local source except that I can make my own for a fair bit less than that.
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:07 pm Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
JoeW wrote:
Latest update from my supermarket:
Edy's ice cream container is now only 1.5 quarts! It used to be 1/2 gallon, then 1.75 quarts, and now this. I'd love to tell the clowns running Edy's what they can do with their quart-and-a-half containers.
Most other brands are 1.75 quarts. The half-gallon container of ice cream, as we knew it, is gone forever. One of life's simplest pleasures has been downsized by corporate greed.
Yeah i found this out a couple weeks ago at the super target, they had a deal where you got free ice cream when you bought 3 12 packs, and i thought it was just a target thing, come to find out it's happened everywhere.
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:17 pm Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
FoolYap wrote:
Mack12345 wrote:
I would have to say that the trend in meat is NOT that less money is being spent on meat .. insted its that the money spent on meat has been DRAMATICLY restructured on a wide scale by our consumers in a relitively short amount of time .
Sales of fresh meat have dropped by very wide margins , more than pretty much anyone i know has ever seen before .
While sales of canned meat products have jumped insanely ... forceing local stores includeing my own to take mesures to keep shelves from totaly emptying of canned meat items .
Examples of canned meat products are as follows "SPAM, canned chili, canned gravy, corned beef, ect ."
My store has trippled orders of SPAM "and its Great value brand equilivant" in the last 60 days just to keep shelves from becomeing empty of these now wildly popular products .
This is a curious thing. Unless the pricing is dramatically different in your region, Spam is not a cheap meat. So unless people are buying it to hoard large quantities of what they expect is a durable food (does Spam ever go bad??), then they're just plain stupid and/or lazy.
Whole roaster chickens, in the stores I shop in anyway, are still around $1.39/lb or less on sale. Spam works out to something over $3/lb, last time I checked. So WTF?? Are the folks buying Spam just too harried to find the time to roast up a chicken? Or do they think they're saving money, without ever doing the math?
--Steve
Great observation, unless they are getting the stuff free or cheap with coupons or are indeed following the idea of hoarding and the economy going under, it does seem foolish to be buying anything canned. In general, ounce for ounce made from scratch food will be cheaper, which is why i generally do not buy canned goods. Dry beans yeild a much larger amount of food than canned, i would assume so too with meat products. Besides, spam is not all that tasty anyway, or any canned meat for that matter. Anyone ever read "The Jungle"? Like i said before, i am down to only eating chicken, eggs and dairy as far as animal products and even that canned chicken noodle soup cannot compare to some nice homeade chicken noodle soup.
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:52 pm Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
"This is a curious thing. Unless the pricing is dramatically different in your region, Spam is not a cheap meat. So unless people are buying it to hoard large quantities of what they expect is a durable food (does Spam ever go bad??), then they're just plain stupid and/or lazy.
Whole roaster chickens, in the stores I shop in anyway, are still around $1.39/lb or less on sale. Spam works out to something over $3/lb, last time I checked. So WTF?? Are the folks buying Spam just too harried to find the time to roast up a chicken? Or do they think they're saving money, without ever doing the math? "
Did a little math on this ... in my area the price of a 12 oz can of spam runs as cheep as 2.12 and as high as 2.36 .
Indeed whole roster chickens are cheeper .. in the 1.40 per lb range .. as is Ground beef and turkey.
I think though as best as I can tell those are just about the only fresh meat products than can under-cut spam at this time .
Pork chops , Pork or beef roasts , Ribs , Steaks , ect are all much higher in price .
I do think some people choose spam over cheeper meats becase it lasts a longtime . Im not saying everyone is hording becase of a possible disaster "I know some are but not most by a strech" . Its easier to buy 3 cans of spam and toss them in the cubbord and forget about them .. esp if your a once a month fixed income shopper .Then 3 weeks later remove them at your lesiure 1 can at a time for a meal .
As opposed to buying/freezeing a whole roster chicken .. when then 3 weeks later needs to be thawed .. cooked "all at once" and then consumed in its entirety relitively quickly before it begins to spoil .
In short I would contend that it is the poorest amoungst us that are currently being driven to the beginings of desperation "mosly fixed income disabled/elderly" . For them I think that a canned meat "IE spam" is a more viable alternitive to some of the cheeper fresh meats .
Most of these people are mainly only feeding 1 or maybe 2 mouths .. so sometimes cooking a full chicken/turkey can seem counter productive .
This is only my opinion as to the why of the sudden spike of canned meats at the expence of fresh meats in my area . I can tell you factualy that is IS happening but my guesses at why are no better than anyones
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:16 pm Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
Mack12345 wrote:
Its easier to buy 3 cans of spam and toss them in the cubbord and forget about them .. esp if your a once a month fixed income shopper .Then 3 weeks later remove them at your lesiure 1 can at a time for a meal .
As opposed to buying/freezeing a whole roster chicken .. when then 3 weeks later needs to be thawed .. cooked "all at once" and then consumed in its entirety relitively quickly before it begins to spoil .
In short I would contend that it is the poorest amoungst us that are currently being driven to the beginings of desperation "mosly fixed income disabled/elderly" . For them I think that a canned meat "IE spam" is a more viable alternitive to some of the cheeper fresh meats .
Most of these people are mainly only feeding 1 or maybe 2 mouths .. so sometimes cooking a full chicken/turkey can seem counter productive .
Bingo! I'm on fixed income, shop once a month, and it IS easier to buy the Spam. Less dishes to do, less waste, easier to cook. I will occasionally buy a brisket, cook it in the slow cooker or pit, and eat off it for a week. I hate wasting food and doing dishes. _________________ A man should never wear a hat that has more character than he does.
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:16 pm Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
This also true for most lunch meat.. You can buy a chicken, ham or pork shoulder for less than the price ofmost convenience meats. In my opinion have a much better sandwich. In the grocery meat case looking at the amount of prepared offering, ie stuffed pork chops, bacon wrappe fillets, stuffed chicken breasts , priced at a premium. Also the amount of deli food being checked out , the majority of people are not price constrained in their food shopping. my opinion only.
Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 577 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:34 am Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
Heineken wrote:
Thanks for this interesting post, Mack, and for the time and effort you put into it.
Those "stealth" price increases are awfully disturbing. One wonders where they will eventually lead---to cans of tuna the size of bottle caps?
This is happening to lots of grocery items.
Those "Ritz" type buttery crackers used to come with 160 crackers per box; i.e., four cellophane tubes each with 40 crackers. At some point, they deleted one cellophane tube, but did not reduce the price by so much as 25%, meaning that the cost per gram of cracker went up. Then they started shorting the cellophane tubes: rather than filling them up with 40 crackers each, the average is now 35 crackers per tube, with the usual range being 33-37. Yesterday, I found a tube with only 32 crackers in it. Yes, I count them, every time. And of course the price rises, too.
So, assuming a 50% increase in price since they started reducing the quantity of the product, the price per gram of cracker has risen by 129%. That's not the whole story on the crackers, of course. At some point, they started using cheaper ingredients: the saltiness of the cracker is real, but the buttery flavor is mostly an illusion caused by a chemical that smells vaguely like butter which is sprayed on the crackers. This perfume makes you think you're tasting butter.
We all know what has happened to loaves of bread, don't we? This year the length shrinks. The year after the bread is sliced thinner than it ever was before. The year after that the bread is baked so that it has larger holes, so you get more air, less bread, even though the package stays the same size. The year after that the price goes up a lot instead of a little. And the following year we're back to shrinking the loaf again and the cycle repeats.
Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 577 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:54 am Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
VMarcHart wrote:
cube wrote:
I'm a firm believer in PO and the great die-off, but I never understood some of the people on this site who have a fixation for hoarding 1,000 lbs worth of food and keeping it in long term storage.
Ahh, but now you touched what it is to be human. Humanitarian gestures only go so far, and individualism and egotistic self-preservation precede it.
Counting up everything, I've got considerably more than a thousand pounds of stored food. And I've learned how to forage, in particular about milkweed: the wild asparagus that just keeps on giving, as long as you're careful not to snap off the top of the plant. I've harvested from the same plants three times, and my latest pot of milkweed leaves is freshly stewed in my three-gallon pressure cooker.
Joined: Sep 04, 2005 Posts: 396 Location: central MA, USA
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:24 am Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
Mack12345 wrote:
Did a little math on this ... in my area the price of a 12 oz can of spam runs as cheep as 2.12 and as high as 2.36 .
Indeed whole roster chickens are cheeper .. in the 1.40 per lb range .. as is Ground beef and turkey.
I think though as best as I can tell those are just about the only fresh meat products than can under-cut spam at this time .
Pork chops , Pork or beef roasts , Ribs , Steaks , ect are all much higher in price .
It may be a regional thing, but I'm still seeing cheaper cuts of beef (shoulder steaks for example) going for $1.99/lb on sale. Boneless pork loin is still commonly to be had on sale for $1.79/lb. The cheaper grades of beef are pretty tough, so I use them in dishes like chili where I can cook 'em for a long time.
I appreciate the response, and I understand you're just the messenger. It does make sense that the convenience and relatively long shelf-life of Spam once opened would make it a good trade-off in the minds of some. I guess I just can't get over the fact that it's a pretty low-grade meat, selling for more than alternatives that are both healthier and cheaper.
And I can see that a whole chicken might be difficult for one person to eat before it spoils. Here's how I deal with that: I roast the bird. I pluck the carcass clean. If I want some chicken for the day's meal then I set it aaside, otherwise I grind up all the meat, in a food processor. I divide up the ground cooked meat into freezer bags, with each one holding enough meat to make a week's worth of chicken salad. Then I freeze everything but "this week's" salad-fixings. I've been doing it for years, haven't ever had any problems. Doesn't take much time to do. And I can boil down the bones for either an immediate soup (toss in some rice & vegetables, and a handful of the dark meat scraps), or for chicken broth that I can freeze for later, much cheaper than cans of stock in the store.
I guess I've never priced out the per-pound cost of my chicken salad. I use real mayonnaise, and chopped parsley, and ground fresh pepper. But I'd bet money it's cheaper than lunch meat.
And, I could eat fresh meat on a more basic level. I could be (and am) buying boneless pork loins, and freezing it in small portions that I could cook & eat as needed.
A 5 cubic foot chest freezer is nearly dirt cheap these days, and doesn't take up much space or use that much power when full. If I was needing to keep my food budget to a minimum, I'd work hard to save to buy such a freezer. I had one for years that did yeoman duty, before trading up to a 14cf freezer a few years ago.
Again, I know you're not advocating anything, just the messenger. I just can't help but wonder whether people buying Spam are thinking these things through. If they actually like the greasy stuff, well that's different.
Joined: Sep 03, 2007 Posts: 620 Location: Sunny Virginia, USA
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:27 am Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
FoolYap wrote:
Again, I know you're not advocating anything, just the messenger. I just can't help but wonder whether people buying Spam are thinking these things through. If they actually like the greasy stuff, well that's different.
1) Spam requires no refridgeration until it's opened.
2) Spam keeps forever.
3) Spam is a "known factor", in otherwords you know exactly what you get every time you open it.
4) Spam is useful:
* Prop up a broken chair leg.
* Poison a neighbor's dog.
* It's better than scrapple.
* Use it to convince the zombies you have no food. _________________ When somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means. -- Otto Harkaman, Space Viking
Joined: Sep 04, 2005 Posts: 396 Location: central MA, USA
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:21 am Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
jlw61 wrote:
4) Spam is useful:
* Prop up a broken chair leg.
* Poison a neighbor's dog.
* It's better than scrapple.
* Use it to convince the zombies you have no food.
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject: Re: Confessions of a Grocery stocker .
JJ wrote:
killJOY wrote:
Why the hell can't you get lemon juice anymore?
It seems always to be OS.
we can't get bag lemons in produce anymore...
Jeez hate to bump this but couldn't get past being pissed off with this situation. I live in Florida, plenty of lemons in the stores but they cost 3/1.99! I mean JC, WTF, OMG. But seriously, I'm planting trees as soon as someone has a sale as they (ones that will produce before I bit the dust), the trees, are quite expensive.
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But it's pretty decent ice cream -- I'd buy some to show solidarity to the local source except that I can make my own for a fair bit less than that. 
