I should say: I think it’s that they sell ice cream machines, and premixed flavor packs and they made their own. Still a food product.
We don’t have Big Lots in my area but we’ve got something similar called Ocean State Job Lot.
I adore their groceries! Besides Bob’s Red Mill products, they also almost always carry a full line of specialty food, whether it’s Indian or Asian or sometimes a mish-mash of everything (I once bought a bottle of South African piri-piri sauce there for $2) I get most of jam/jelly there, sometimes coffee, sometimes cereal, which almost always seems to come from Canada for some odd reason.
I’ve never had an issue with anything – no stray hairs, nothing out of code, etc. It’s simply just stuff that didn’t sell elsewhere. The thing I have to keep in mind is that some of their prices are on a par with the area supermarkets, so sometimes you don’t get the bargain you think you’re getting.
Well, obviously some people do, at least on the 2-for-1 days.
…which I now drive by frequently as well. “Drive by because what in the hell does such a store sell” being the expanded phrase.
I just don’t have any compelling need to buy salvage, bulk, leftover or “odd lot” stuff, even at the dollar store level. I especially don’t have any need to walk into a “cheap junk” store just to see what they have for sale.
I used to like buying the discontinued energy drinks at BL, they would have them for fifty cents or less and for a while there brands were going extinct every month so they always had lots of different stock.
It’s okay, there are more every month. I completely fail to understand the reasoning, but I recently helped a client move into a new working space… which was still hung with the posters for and contained stacks of a sports/energy drink specifically for hockey. You’ve never heard of the brand. No one ever did.
A good portion of potential clients I talk with are intent on releasing and marketing some kind of “energy drink” with one specialty or another. (One is rolling out a sex-booster drink to be flogged by porn stars and sold in adult shops.) They tend to want to pay in shares, which of course one day will be worth billions.
I understand trying to pile onto a hot market. I fail to understand who thinks they can take on PepsiCo and Coke in the marketplace. (Especially when many of them know nothing about food production and are simply rebranding a generic drink from Sysco or another bulk producer. S’truth. Did you know that most froyo places just get their stuff in bulk from the same provider as everyone else and give it a catchy name?)