Costco Wholesale celebrates organic food with instant rebates

Bare Fruit Organic Fuji Apple Chips are one of the organic foods that are reduced through Feb. 1 at Costco Wholesale.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss instant rebates on organic food at Costco Wholesale, and ShopRite's Can Can Sale, where the savings are few and far between.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Costco Wholesale is following a lifestyle magazine article on four organic suppliers with discounts in its warehouse stores.

On Tuesday, an employee handed me a flier listing savings on organic products as I entered the Hackensack warehouse store.

They included $2.20 off Sambazon Organic Acai Superfood Juice, $2.50 off Pasta Prima Organic Spinach & Cheese Ravioli and $3 off Mayorga Organic Cafe Cubano Whole Bean Coffee.

Inside the store, I found two large displays of organic food.

See:

The Costco Connection's article on organics

A display at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack included Kirkland Signature Organic Salsa and Chicken Stock.

I bought Paesana Organic Tomato & Basil pasta sauce.

The organic pasta sauce, which has no added sugar, will go perfectly with Organic Whole Wheat Shells from Whole Foods Market ($1.49).

The label of this Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil from Costco says it can be used for cooking, in smoothies and as a skin and hair moisturizer.

At the ShopRite in Paramus, farmed-raised tilapia fillets from China were reduced further for the Can Can Sale, but given the country's poor food-safety record, I would never buy them.

Few deals at Can Can Sale

True to its name, the biggest savings at ShopRite's Can Can Sale are on canned goods.

At the ShopRite in Paramus this morning, I found only a few bargains on other items:

Organic whole wheat pasta (89 cents to $1.25 a pound), Adirondack Seltzer in 12-ounce cans (12 for $2.50), Clementines from Morocco (5 pounds for $4.99), Olivio Light Spread ($2.50) and Alberto VO5 Shampoo ($1.99 for a 26.5-ounce pump bottle).

During the Can Can Sale, Luigi Vitelli Organic Whole Wheat Pasta from Italy is being sold for 89 cents, $1.19 and $1.25 a pound, depending on the shape, above and below.

At the register, two packages of organic whole wheat linguine and two of spaghetti rang up at $1.25 each. When I asked an employee to check the signs on the shelf, I was charged 89 cents for one package of linguine and given the second one for free.

ShopRite's shelves are filled with a lot of grossly overpriced pasta, above and below.

The larger pump bottles of Alberto VO5 Shampoo are a better buy than the smaller size.