Supermarket mysteries
...or Musings Over the Grocery Cart Listening to "White Christmas" One More Time.
*Did they really sell all those red, green and silver Hershey's Kisses last year or did they just store them away and bring them out again this holiday season?
*Why does Arnold's Natural Wheat bread have raisin juice concentrate in it?
*Who at Giant first thought that "Giant" was a good name for a supermarket? Why name yourself after a fairytale villain? Or why not name yourself "Small, Local and Caring," even if you aren't?
*Why does Parranno cheese call itself "the Swiss cheese that thinks its Italian" if it's really Dutch?
*Who buys a "microwave potato" ready for baking for 79 cents when a regular, and bigger, baking potato costs 50 cents? The only difference is that one is washed and wrapped in plastic wrap. I'm all for convenience, but really. Why wrap a baking potato in plastic wrap to microwave it anyway?
*When did they start doing Geico commercials over SuperFresh's sound system?
Comments
Why do you need a supermarket-specific "shoppers card" to get discounts on certain items in each particular store? Why not just (gasp!) lower the prices of all items accross-the-board and do away with the cards?
Posted by: Flipkid | December 7, 2007 10:01 AM
Musings? These seem like deep thoughts to me.
Posted by: hungry eyes | December 7, 2007 11:36 AM
Musings over the Grocery Cart. Sounds like a good name of a semi-regular feature,
Posted by: Janet | December 7, 2007 11:48 AM
I admire your supermarket musings. This time of year the thoughts that I have while in the supermarket are things for which my Mom would have washed out my mouth! Happy holidays to you. And thank you for the gift of this wonderful blog. It is evident that you take great pride in it and your readers are appreciative.
Posted by: Regina | December 7, 2007 11:52 AM
The groceries "shoppers cards" aren't for our benefit, even though they pretend that that is the reason. They are to track our selections: more Big Brother.
Posted by: Susan O'Connell | December 7, 2007 12:13 PM
They stock to Hershey Kisses right next to the left over candy corn and Peeps.
Posted by: Jason | December 7, 2007 2:07 PM
That's why I have each one of mine in the name of one of my cats (or in one case, the name of a now-deceased cat).
Posted by: Hal Laurent | December 7, 2007 2:49 PM
Yes, I think people are right about tracking our purchases. When Wegman's came here I heard from a friend that her brother in Rochester got a message from the mother ship apologizing for being out of his cat's favorite food, which he thought was very nice until he realized that he had not complained about this.
Posted by: Darlene | December 7, 2007 4:42 PM
There is more than one Giant Supermarket chain in this country, so more than one person must have thought it was a good name. I guess the giant term makes people think of big or large selection of products
Posted by: Robert | December 8, 2007 9:51 AM
My bet on why there is raisin juice concentrate in the wheat bread - color. People have become so adjusted to what wheat bread "should" look like (with artificial colors and all) that they feel the need to darken the natural stuff with "natural" color.
Posted by: Anne | December 9, 2007 9:23 AM
Less a musing and more of a complaint that I often wonder about at the store: Why is everything getting bigger? So many things are "family size" -- how about making things "single size?" There are some of us who live alone who could do with a half-size loaf of bread, for instance. I feel like so much of my food goes to waste.
Posted by: aeb | December 10, 2007 12:29 PM
I'm SO glad to see that I'm not the only one who has "out of mind" experiences while pushing a shopping cart. I like this--maybe it should be a regular feature!
Could it be Arnold's thinks concentrated raisin juice can be both a colorant and a better sweetener that than the corn syrup derivatives that are in every-darned-thing?
Posted by: Dottie | December 10, 2007 2:52 PM