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A Tale of Two Shelf TagsEating Economically at the Co-op by Ruth Ann Smalley A certain young member of
my family, who shall remain anonymous,
taught me two valuable lessons about shopping economically. One:
Pay attention to the shelf tag! Eye-opening information is available
there. Two:
Compare shelf tags in the bulk section to comparable items elsewhere.
You may
change your shopping habits once you do. I’d always been vaguely
aware of these facts. But, I confess, I
hadn’t taken a close look at the data. Must be because I am often
robotically
working my way through a busy store, chock-a-block with tantalizing
products,
distracted by those anonymous family members with decided tastes in
food.
Sensory overload, combined with haste, and habit, are no recipe for
contemplative purchasing. It took expensive snack
food to push me into mindfulness. My
family member, whom I am tempted to call Young Fruit-Bat, loves fruit
“leathers” and has not reached the age of portion control (if anyone
ever
does). At 75 cents each, these delicacies are almost on a par with
sushi.
String cheese, another favorite, is also right up there, at 69 cents
per string.
The moral of the story told by the shelf tags: “Convenience Is Costly.”
Together, price and packaging issues are a strong motivation for buying
in bulk
— especially when the tags tally as they do for snacks. American families spend
upwards of $650 billion on snack food
annually, and the industry is savvy about marketing to children. The
U.S.
Department of Agriculture found that, as of 1999, the per capita
consumption of
salty snacks alone was over 14 pounds a year. Current consumption may
be even
higher among time-stressed working families. Plus, the convenience
factor has
increased marketing of individually wrapped portions — meaning more
expense, and
even more wasteful packaging. Prepared Foods’ website notes that “99%
of kids
eat single-serving snacks,” and sees this as a way to “foster a child’s
growing
independence by allowing them to get their own snack with the knowledge
that
the portion will be controlled.” Sounds like a good way to foster brand
loyalty
as well — hardly a form of independence. So, if you can shift to
bulk for some of your snacks, you’ll
also win a small but important victory by escaping packaged foods’
built-in
advertising. Since many of our bulk foods come from small, independent
suppliers,
you’ll also avoid buying from huge, multinational corporations. Of
course, once
you start thinking in terms of dollars per pound, you may just find
yourself
rethinking snack food altogether. But that’s a different story… So let’s look at some
figures. The first time I saw the bulk
price of organic dried wild blueberries, I suffered sticker shock. That
was
before I took a close look at the price per pound for fruit leathers.
The
non-organic kind runs $20.80. Organic ones cost $30. That makes the
bulk
blueberries — filled with those beneficial anthocyans — look pretty
good at
$16.99. And that’s just about the priciest bulk fruit. You can choose
apple
rings, papaya, pineapple, mango, cherries and tropical mix for prices
ranging
from around $8 to about $11 per pound. All organic. And, hooray, it
turns out
my fruit lover actually prefers real, dried fruit to the more
processed, smooshed
kind. This price difference is
borne out across snack categories. Here
are a few examples, just to inspire you. Organic microwaveable popcorn
is
nearly $8 a pound, compared with bulk organic kernels at 90 cents.
Packaged
wasabi green peas cost almost $8 per pound. In bulk they are about
$4.50. For
salty snacks, the bulk aisle offers sesame, cheddar or oat sticks for
just
pennies over $2, while the lowest-priced packaged chips start at $3.39.
Packaged high-end items can run to nearly $14 per pound. If you really
want to
feel virtuous, consider buying some bulk soynuts at $2.99, instead of
splurging
on those packaged organic soy crisps for $35. 57! |
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