Grocery stores are a service industry. I find them usually real helpful. One store I frequent saves dog bones for me. I usually get a nice bagful for $1 or so.
Efficient grocery stores are doing very well on their bakery & deli departments via this – produce that would otherwise be wasted gets sent there to be used.
Bananas that are getting brown? Off to the bakery, and tomorrow there’ll be a special on fresh banana bread. If it’s carrots getting limp, tomorrows special will be carrot cake.
Fruit bruised on one side? Off to the deli, where they cut of the bruised part and the rest goes into deli fruit salad. Or damaged produce? The undamaged part goes into a deli salad special.
So a lot of food that might have been wasted gets sold as prepared items. And besides cutting waste, the ‘fresh made deli potato salad’ has a lot higher profit margin than a sack of potatoes!
I miss the hostess/wonder outlets … we even had a dolly Madison outlet …Wednesdays were bargain day but it fed my orange cupcake addiction for years originally they were 10 for a dollar but eventually it was 10 for five but when they were 2-3.50 for 2 cupcakes it still was a deal …
I wonder if they have Hershey outlets in Hershey, Penn.? That sounds like a vacay I would like.
Back in my supermarket-working days, we always pushed the full cart into a cooler until the shopper returned (or didn’t).
Finding steaks behind the Wonder Bread was infuriating. I always hoped to catch the moron who did this red-handed, but I never did.
Anyone remember the All in the Family episode where Archie was following Edith around the grocery store, hitting the cans in their cart with a hammer?
mmm
I don’t think this is really true in a lot of chain American grocery stores. To begin, most fresh goods are prepared off site and brought in. There isn’t a bakery or a butcher really.
Secondly, even if there was a bakery, it’s not efficient to stop and make 6 carrot cakes because a case of carrots went bad. The departments have to be on a tight schedule and plan ahead to coordinate stock. Even if they were able to make 30 cakes, they might not have the cream cheese icing (all of these come in huge buckets). There also is the issue of making carrot cake unexpectedly. If they are busy making cakes, who is making the bread, or stocking shelves?
The chicken works for Costco because they were going to use chicken regardless for a regularly sold product, and actually prepare food.
Last time we were in Manassas, we picked up three boxes of Christmas-themed breakfast cereal for $2.50 each and a “best before” date around July of this year.
The Ollie’s in Manassas is right next door to a great used book/LP/CD/movie/video game/RPG store.