Yeast is the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title. Even when it *is *in the aisle you are looking in, it’s easy to overlook because the display is so small.
Been looking for it since I became an adult. Beginning to think I dreamed it.
You’re assuming everything is in a category. What category is Velveeta in?
Try finding x-bran in our store for various x’s. No two are in the same area.
Here’s another one: straws. Looked on the shelves with paper plates, plastic silverware, etc. Not there. Asked a clerk. Pointed us to the soda aisle. Had “goofy” straws only. Etc.
And pointing to a general area isn’t helpful. It’s very hard to find something that’s the only one of it’s type mixed in with hundreds of other things.
Another tale, while I’m at it. There was an ad for some sort of Asian thing. Mrs. FtG wanted it. Couldn’t find it in the store. Not one person we asked had even heard of it, let alone knew where it was. It was in their ad!
Pepperoni. Plain old Hormel Pepperoni.
So far its been with the deli meats, side of an endcap, and in the pasta aisle.
Either my store doesn’t carry Shake N Bake or they’ve really hidden it. Hollandaise sauce also.
Took me awhile to find the Velveeta too.
I haven’t had that problem at the Wal-Mart where I shop.
I spent ten minutes wandering around Shaws on Friday only to discover they keep tomato sauce and spaghetti sauce in different aisles…
Hmmm…I’m intrigued now. I could swear it’s just there in the peanut butter aisle, but, I admit, I haven’t actually bought any, well, ever. Tried it once as a kid. But I swear I’ve seen it. I have to look the next time I’m out shopping. This could just be one of those fabricated memories.
ETA: Although, just quickly looking online, it seems that most people say it’s located in the baking aisle. WTF would they put it there? Are there pies or cakes you bake with it? (The fact that I’m asking this question probably means the answer is “yes,” but I’ve only heard of it being used as a spread for fluffernutters, hence being located near the peanut butter.)
Yes; the dry yeast, not cake yeast. I make three bread recipes a year (lately), and so the threebie of the yeast works perfectly. So weird.
Fudge.
It’s irritating.
I suppose that’s why some Einstein moved the condensed/evaporated milk from the baking aisle to the coffee aisle. :mad: Because when I think “condensed milk”, I think, “coffee”.
Did you try the jazz singers section?
Seriously, Wet Ones. Not with the baby wipes. Usually with the facial tissues.
Actually the nuts thing makes sense as some are nuts for baking and others are nuts for snacking.
A couple of weeks ago I had to buy two things I have never before purchased in my life, dry mustard powder and molasses.
Well I just happened to be at probably THE biggest grocery store in Ottawa at the time. This store even has its own kosher section, which may be popular in some US cities, but not here.
It took me forever to find both, and I asked for help. The customer service girl knew exactly where the molasses would be, and I had been down that isle, but it is stored on the top shelf only, at about 6 feet.
It took me and two other employees to find the mustard. It was near the other spices and stuff but in a little can about the size of a three Lego pieces.
Yes. Many Einsteins, in fact, most with degrees in behavioral psych, accompanied by big data AIs and all the data that endless tracking of you has provided.
Shelf news used to be a store-by-store or chain-by-chain practice, with each manager or company having their own combination of known facts, voodoo and hunch about how to arrange and rearrange things. It’s now an increasingly data- and science-driven process using that enormous flood of consumer/shopper data, and it varies from stuff published in the trade journals and related ABA journals to sooper-seekrit findings held closely by one corporation or another.
In anything but the smallest mom’n’pop or independent grocer, it’s very likely that not one product is in that place through chance or whim. Condensed milk is by coffee because that’s where it sells the most. Period.
Spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce are strictly segregated here. I always forget and have to search and search.
I can usually find Velveeta near the pasta, because they tend to store it near those cans of sawdust they call “parmesan”.
Marshmallow fluff has always been in the baking aisle, usually close to the regular ol’ marshmallows.
Raisins and other dried fruit, however, were moved recently in the store I frequent, and the move makes no sense to me. The dried fruit used to be in the aisle with other fruit, between the canned fruit and the fruit snacks. Now, it’s been moved to be by the jelly. The jelly? Really? The jelly is next to the peanut butter and opposite a whole wall of bread. What is the thinking here? What do these products have to do with each other? No one is putting dried cranberries on their sandwich!
It’s a staple for my wife’s cooking repertoire, and so, I’ve had to learn both what the can looks like (and it must be Colman’s), as well as where to find it.
I finally found raisins. They’re near salad toppings, like croutons and bacon bits.
I thought of another hard, near impossible to find item: anchovies. There not with the other canned fish, like tuna and salmon, because they – for some unknown reason – need to be refrigerated. So, they’re with the packaged sushi! Of course!
What’s likely is that items that are a category unto themselves (e.g., Velveeta, Marshmallow Fluff) or in a very tiny group (e.g., raisins and dried fruit), which don’t have a clear “sister” category for shelving (due to how they’re used, or need for refrigeration / freezing) are effectively orphans when grocery stores plan out their shelving, and wind up getting stuck wherever there’s a bit of extra space. And, thus, you get placement that can be both nonsensical, as well as maddeningly inconsistent from store to store.
That’s weird. Here I’ve only seen them with the other canned fish. Never seen them refrigerated. They might also end up in the Italian imports aisle (or a subsection of them might end up there, I should say.)