Confused customers trying to adapt to changes at ShopRite in Paramus

At the ShopRite in Paramus, shelving has been replaced with new refrigerated cases for milk, yogurt, cheese and other dairy products, as well as orange juice and ice cream. Half-gallons of ShopRite Lactose Free Milk are $2.99 each.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

ShopRite in Paramus has customers searching for such familiar products as lactose-free milk.

The store at 224 Route 4 east just finished replacing aisles of refrigerated shelving with refrigerated cases, and in the process, moved the store brand of lactose-free milk and many other dairy products.

This morning, I heard two customers say they were "totally confused."

Another annoyance is that the doors on the cases are inconvenient for left-handed people like me, but that's nothing new.

I stop at the Paramus store once or twice a week on the way home from the gym to shop for a limited number of items.

I continue to spend most of my food dollars at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro and the Costco Business Center in Hackensack, where, by the way, the food court still has not reopened.

Even for large sizes, the Paramus ShopRite usually can't match Costco's prices.

I saw a 40-bottle pack of Poland Springs Spring Water for $6.99 at ShopRite or $2 more than at Costco.

Another change apparent in the front of the Paramus store is that shoppers are greeted by a display of cookies instead of Golden Pineapples and other fruit.

Like the smaller, more expensive Campari Tomatoes sold at Costco Wholesale, Big Taste Tomatoes are grown in hothouses in Mexico. At the Paramus ShopRite, 1-pound packages were on sale today for 99 cents each. I haven't tried them yet to see if they rival the Campari Tomato.

A 3-pound bag of Organic Sweet Potatoes is $5.99 or about $2 a pound, but organic baby yams and sweet potatoes are $3.99 a pound, below. I found a 3-pound bag of conventional sweet potatoes on another shelf for $2.99.

Yams are starchier than sweet potatoes.

A new item is Newman's Own for the Common Good organic pasta sauces. Instead, I purchased two 44-ounce jars of Classico Tomato & Basil pasta sauce with no added sugar, on sale for a total of $6.19 (about $3.10 each). A pound of Luigi Vitelli Organic Whole Wheat Pasta from Italy is now $1.29, up four cents, but still a better buy than similar products from Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market.

When shopping competing sales, don't forget to take a calculator

Poland Spring Water on sale at ShopRite in October 2015.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Just when I thought ShopRite's 40th anniversary sale ended on Saturday, a newspaper flier heralded a second week of bargains -- through Jan. 22. But I also discovered that some of the items offered during the Can Can Sale aren't good buys at all.

We stopped buying bottled water more than a year ago and started using reusable bottles for home-filtered water.

But we decided three 24-packs of Poland Spring water at the ShopRite in Englewood for the Can Can price of $10 was a good deal (my wife likes to keep bottles of water in her car trunk).

When she came home, I used a calculator to figure out each 16.9-ounce bottle cost us nearly 14 cents -- far more than the same bottle at Costco, where we shop every week.

On the same trip, my wife bought three,18-ounce plastic bottles of White Rain shampoo for 59 cents each, reduced from 99 cents.

One-stop shopping

At one store Friday morning, I picked up two polo shirts ($12.99 each), a mixed bouquet of flowers to welcome my wife home from a trip ($14.99) and lots of terrific food at great prices: 

Dungeness crab, Black Tiger prawns, canned anchovies, organic spring mix, herbicide-free tomatoes, organic spinach and Tropicana orange juice. 

Will Costco Wholesale in Hackensack ever become the only store I have to visit?