Is there a supermarket price war?

Image by roboppy via Flickr

There's a lot to digest in the full-page ad from Fairway Market in Paramus that ran in The Record on Friday. "We've slashed our prices and you save up to 30% on over 12,000 grocery items."

But there's a couple of caveats: Only items in Aisles 7-11 are covered and the sale, which started Friday, ends Dec. 31. The ad also contains a coupon giving you $10 off a purchase of $75, good until Dec. 6.

The ad says you'll save 30% off  "our already every day low prices." But if the sale is limited to Aisles 7-11, I don't believe you'll find any deals on Murray's free-roaming chicken or fresh-ground coffee -- two of the items I usually buy there.

Also, there is a note of desperation in this ad. Has this small, New York-based supermarket chain that is so full of itself found the North Jersey market too tough to crack?

It delayed opening a North Jersey store for several years, fearing it couldn't compete with ShopRite, acknowledged by many as the low-price leader. But that assumed all food shoppers judged their stores by price alone, ignoring consumers who want a wide variety of drug-free meat and poultry, organic produce and dairy products, and conventional produce that doesn't rot on your counter overnight.

By the time Fairway opened this year, it had to contend with a new Whole Foods Market in Paramus -- with a far better selection of healthy meat and poultry. And ShopRite stores offered more organic food.

And you can't discount the location of the Fairway Market, in the unfashionable Fashion Center on Route 17. I hadn't been there for years. The rent must have been terrific and the landlord must have made many concessions to lure Fairway there, putting over a fast one on the arrogant owners, who claim, "Enter Fairway once, you'll be hooked for life." The Glickbergs may be the only ones who are hooked.

Turkey drumsticks, custom-ground coffee

The crowds are building at the Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff, where we stopped to pick up turkey parts I ordered over the phone and to reserve a heritage turkey for Thanksgiving. All of the birds sold here are raised on a vegetarian diet and without antibiotics.

As a special treat, I also got six duck eggs -- which are yolkier than the ones from chickens -- because we have been using egg beaters for about a year now to help keep our cholesterol down. For the eggs, three turkey drumsticks, three thighs, three wings and four pounds of turkey neck, I paid a total of $26.80. (549 Goffle Road, Wyckoff; 201-444-3238. www.gofflepoultry.com)

Our next stop was Fairway Market in Paramus, because I had run out of their custom-ground coffee. I picked up three pounds of dark- and medium-roasted beans, ground Turkish style, for $4.99 to $7.99 a pound, several dollars below anything available at Starbucks.

But I noticed some of the Fairway sale items weren't all that they seemed. The store is selling three one-pound containers of Campari tomatoes for $5 -- a good buy -- but these were not herbicide-free. Jumbo white shrimp from U.S. waters are $5.99 a pound, which is a good price if they were wild-caught, which they are not.

I did indulge myself with the purchase of a wedge of Spanish fig cake with nuts. However, it seemed pricey at $8.99 a pound.  (Fairway Market, 35 E. Ridgewood Ave., Paramus; 201-444-5455. www.fairwaymarket.com)