I just had some pre-packaged sushi for lunch. It was from one of those upscale grocery stores that makes it on-site, so it’s not like the mystery stuff trucked in from East Elbow, Utah that’s sold at the Kwik-E-Mart.
When I was there, I bumbled across Rice Krispy treats. On a per-pound basis, they’re over $35 a pound. :eek: Pretty steep for Rice Krispies and marshmallows! Needless to say, I didn’t buy them.
I just noticed the label on the sushi, which says $18.64 a pound. No particular bargain perhaps, but what economic principles are at work here to make a childhood treat that’s dead easy (if a bit sticky) for anyone to make at home from ingredients that are shelf-stable for months cost nearly twice as much per pound as the comparatively labor-intensive sushi, with all of the very perishable fish that needs to be kept safely cold, plus the various vegetables that need to be prepared and cut and assembled with a smidge of artistic effort?
$35 a pound for kids’ cereal and marshmallows vs $18.64 a pound for fish that will spoil if you so much as think warm thoughts near it? Something’s not adding up here.
I imagine the difference is at least partially because those items are not usually priced by weight. I mean, think about how much sushi is in a pound, and then how many Rice Krispy treats in a pound – you’ll have a lot more treats than sushi. The prices for those sorts of items probably aren’t determined by weight, but that the price per pound is automatically printed by the supermarket software that is used for everything else in the store.
You’re forgetting the demand side of the equation. Number of people who eat bait = X. Number of kids who demand Rice Krispy Treats from harried mothers who don’t want the mess in the kitchen and the hassle of cutting and wrapping the squares for the little darlings’ lunchs = 10X.
There’s also the cost of advertising, since it’s taken a lot of money and effort to ensure that every man, woman and child on the face of the earth knows exactly what a Kellogg’s Rice Krispy is. Odds are that the sushi didn’t have any recognizable brand name.
I saw the following bit of stupidity in a grocery store, while shopping for ibuprofen. Three different sizes of the same generic brand were available, right next to each other. They were:
Actually, the krispy treats had no brand name either, and are apparently made by the store. They’re of similar, but variable, weight, and were priced accordingly.
I’ve seen this a couple of times at a local drug store now, and it’s completely counterintuitive to the usual “law of bulk.” (As quantity goes up, the price-per-unit goes down.)
The most egregious example was a “sale” my local supermarket had a year or so ago, that featured 2L Pepsi bottles on for $1.29 ea. or 3 for $4.49! That one lasted a whole week. I even bought three bottles and demanded they price them individually instead of their bulk “sale” price.
Then there’s the ongoing pricing of their store-brand paper towels. The small-roll 2-pack is $0.79. The large roll 2-pack is $1.59, or roughly double the price. The large roll, however, does not have double the sheets, and furthermore, each sheet is slightly smaller. Shenanigans!
