I was in my local supermarket today, buying (among other things) red leaf lettuce. I was surprised to note that the price was quoted per pound, rather than per head. As a typical head weighs about 1.2 pounds, this matters.
I’ll admit I don’t pay close attention to such things, but I could have sworn that in the relatively recent past it was always priced per head. I asked a couple of the store folks, but they pleaded complete ignorance of anything to do with the subject (and offered vacant expressions that convinced me their ignorance wasn’t feigned) . I did check the iceberg lettuce (which I never buy) and found that it was being sold by the head.
One reason I find this strange is that this market - like many - uses one of those automatic misting systems designed to keep produce fresh by frequent small doses of water (at least you’re supposed to believe this keeps things fresh). If the price is based on weight, customers need to shake out the water and even dry their selected items in order to get a fair price.
So my question is whether this is unusual, or did I somehow imagine that I’d always been buying lettuce by the head?
Around here, the stores switch it up. Sometimes they sell by the head, sometimes by the pound.
I expect it has something to do with upping their profit margins through irregular pricing changes.
The stores I frequent have always (since I started paying attention anyway) sold iceberg by the head but other lettuce by the pound; and I always shake, shake, shake trying to make sure that I don’t pay extra for water droplets.
I was a kid working in supermarket produce departments in the NE US since I was 16, back in the mid-1980’s. Only iceberg lettuce was normally sold by the head. Red leaf, green leaf, and romaine were sold by the pound. Hydroponic Boston lettuce was sold by the little plastic box, i.e. sold by the units “each”, not by the “head”, but the bulk Boston lettuce in season was sold by the pound.
It may be a regional thing, but I can’t believe any market would want to tie itself to one price, regardless of whether the size of the unit was small or large. Guess Iceberg lettuce is just normally one size, so it’s traditional to sell by the head. Nowadays, I only buy romaine hearts, again, it’s bags of three, but the volume of the bag kinda forces a uniformity of size to price.
As I recall, sometimes a crop of iceberg lettuce was smaller than at other times in the season, and people would bitch about what they were getting. Likewise, when they were abnormally large, people would squeal with delight, except, savvy people would wonder about the flavor of overgrown lettuce. Like iceberg lettuce has flavor – I always told people who were interested in my opinion to buy another, tastier, and yes pricier, lettuce.
I remember when oranges were always priced each, and not by weight. I also remember a brief switch over to by the pound. Oh, did the angry people come out of the woodwork for that – what the hell was I trying to pull – me, the minimum wage, union due paying, acne crusted, teen, did I realize what I was doing to their pension income? Did I? Dunno how it’s done now.
I’ve seen it either way. It used to be that normally only the Iceberg heads were a by the head price. The rest were by the pound as already stated. Without the misting you wouldn’t buy the withered lettuce after a day or two on the shelf. I hope you don’t obsess over having to pay for water that doesn’t run out when you tip it upside down as it is not that much, in which case I would guess you only buy apples with the stems pulled off.
I’ve lived mostly in California, the southwest & now the midwest.
As best I can recall going back 30+ years, iceberg is almost universally priced by the head & all other lettuces are priced by the pound. If the stuff is packaged & sold by the each, those packages are a fixed weigth (all 8 oz or 12 or whatever), so that still amounts to pricing by the pound.
I don’t usually buy a whole head of iceberg because it goes bad so fast. I DO buy the loose leaf which is sold by the pound, which also goes bad fast; but with the looseleaf I can just pick off a few leaves, put them in the plastic baggie, and weigh them on the scale and print out a price tag, to avoid endless confusion and delay at the checkout.
As far as oranges, it varies, even in the same supermarket on the same day. My local supermarket might have navel oranges on sale “4 for $1.00”, but then in the next aisle, you’ll find a 4lb bag of oranges for X price. This, of course, means that the navel oranges that are advertised are per fruit, while the bags of oranges are per pound.
As far as the OP is concerned, though. . .well, I will normally buy a “bagged salad” of something like Mixed Field Greens, or something (so I get a good assortment) then round it out with some uncooked baby spinach. The baby spinach either comes from the salad bar (priced per pound) or in a hard plastic container, priced ‘per each’, but each one is 12oz or whatever. So I guess that’s ‘by the pound’, too, when you break it down. . .
I’m already seeing black and white signs at the store over the lettuce bin explaining that lettuce (and other things) is going to cost an arm and a leg due to freezing in Florida. My “Five Fruits and Veggies A Day” is going to end up being a can of fruit cocktail and a carrot!