Missing signs and products can make ShopRite in Paramus a hassle

At the ShopRite in Paramus this morning, I found a sign for an 18-ounce package of blueberries from Chile, but not for the smaller container below it.

The smaller container was marked 1 dry pint and weighed 12 ounces.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Missing price signs make shopping a hassle, but maybe food stores want you to take the item to the register and buy it no matter what it costs.

I stop at the ShopRite in Paramus, because it is on the way home from the gym. 

This morning, I went there to use a super coupon for three 24-bottle packs of Poland Spring Water ($9) as long as you spent $10 on other items, and used a store card.

An 18-ounce package of blueberries from Chile, a so-called Manager's Special, was marked down to $5.99 from $8.99.

Not only was that a dollar more than at Costco Wholesale, but I could see many of the blueberries were broken or bruised and unappetizing.

A smaller container had no price.

I looked and looked for a 3-pound bag of sweet potatoes I had purchased there regularly, but couldn't find any for the second week in a row. 

So, I bought three half-gallons of ShopRite Lactose Free Milk ($2.99 each), and a 1-pound package of Luigi Vitelli Organic Whole Wheat Fusilli ($1.25).

At the Paramus ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east, all varieties of ShopRite 100% Lactose Free Milk are grouped together.

But last week at the Rochelle Park ShopRite, 220 W. Passaic St., varieites of the store-brand of Lactose Free Milk were scattered. I was looking for 1% milk. However, this store had the 3-pound bag of sweet potatoes I couldn't find in Paramus.

Food warehouse

I've gotten some good buys on organic and non-organic extra-virgin olive oil for salads at the International Food Warehouse, 370 Essex St., Lodi.

But this afternoon, so many price signs were missing, I had to bring up to the register 3-liter and 2-liter containers of Iliada-brand Kalamata EVOO from Greece to find out they were priced too high.

I did buy a 5-ounce package of non-organic Spring Mix and another of Arugula for 99 cents each.

The Food Warehouse has a good selection of Middle Eastern pocket breads, and extra-virgin olive oils from Lebanon, but here again, price signs are missing or prices are higher than you'd find in Paterson.

And I saw a package of bread sticks made in Damascus, Syria.

Is there no end to food shopping?

Image by Sarolazmi via Flickr

Champagne mangoes.

I twisted my wife's arm to grab the Costco Wholesale coupon book and make a trip to the warehouse store in Hackensack today, but when she didn't find an item on her list, I had to run out to another store for it.


On Monday, my wife and my mother-in-law made a trip to ShopRite in Rochelle Park, as well as to Hackensack Market, but Costco was closed for the Labor Day holiday.


At ShopRite, my wife picked up cabbage, potatoes, bananas, apple sauce and condensed sweet milk.


At Hackensack Market on Passaic Street, she concentrated on Jamaican products, including 12 cans of a collard-like green called callaloo, in salted water; Grace-brand juice and pumpkin-soup base; Lasco-brand soy drink, Ting grapefruit solda, Foska oats and Excelsior water crackers.


She also bought green boiling bananas and yellow, soon-to-be-sweet plantains.


At Costco on Tuesday morning, a dozen 6-ounce cups of Stonyfield Farm organic, low-fat, fruit yogurt were $7.89 or 65 cents each; two 28-ounce loaves of 100% whole-grain Kirkland Signature bread were $4.19; and two 3-pound jars of Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter with sugar were about $4.20 each.


Four pounds of red seedless grapes were $1.75 a pound. Grade A medium-amber maple syrup from Canada, in a 32-ounce bottle, was $12.99.


My wife used Costco coupons for a total discount of $9, but she couldn't find preserves without high-fructose corn syrup.


So, later in the day, I made a trip to the International Food Warehouse on Essex Street in Lodi, where I found 12- and 13-ounce jars of strawberry, plum, peach and raspberry preserves with sugar for $2.29 to $2.79 each.


I also picked up four half-liters of Capitolio organic extra-virgin olive oil from Chile for $2 each. Fresh Jersey corn were six for $2, but the four ears I bought are small and I'm not sure how sweet they are.


Taste of the islands


My wife brought home a single mango from Jamaica that was a revelation, compared to the fruit from Mexico and Brazil I've been buying in North Jersey.


The color of the flesh was close to orange and the taste was even sweeter than Champagne mangoes. 


They are sold by street vendors in Jamaica for $3 to $4 each.

The mail-in rebate from hell

Image via Wikipedia

 I stopped at the ShopRite in Rochelle Park to pick up a few things on Tuesday, and on the way out, steered my cart into the liquor store in search of wine for $4.99 to $7.99 a bottle.


Among the California wine, I found Turning Leaf pinot noir for $6.99 a bottle -- and a rebate of $9 if you buy three, 750 milliliter bottles. That would bring the final cost down to $3.99 a bottle. Great deal, I thought. At the register, I was told it was a mail-in rebate and I had to send in the receipt, so went back to get the small form.

As I was loading my two reusable bags of groceries into the car, I stopped to read the rebate form's tiny type -- easier to do in the daylight than inside the store. It said Maryland and New Jersey residents weren't required to send in the original receipt, but had to return the UPC code from each bottle.


Then, it went on to describe how each bottle -- when empty -- had to be soaked in hot water for 10-15 minutes to lift off the UPC code. It even described the temperature of the water, and warned not to try this when the bottle was full. So it might be three weeks before I could mail in the form and UPC codes for a refund (I drink a glass of wine with dinner several times a week).


I went back and got a refund.

A sale on chicken I won't be shopping

A package of Readington Farms chicken thighs (July 2012).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Saturday afternoon, I stopped at the ShopRite in Rochelle Park to take a closer look at the Perdue chicken being sold for 50% off today through Oct. 3. 

What I saw convinced me that this is among the worst chicken you can buy.

For example, a Perdue pre-seasoned roaster is "enhanced" with up to 17% seasoned chicken broth. That means you are paying 17% of the price for broth, not poultry. 

This 6-pound bird is going for a mere $4.99, but it likely was raised on antibiotics and there's nothing on the label about a vegetarian diet. So it might have eaten feed with bits of dead chicken.

Yet the label has the meaningless phrase "All natural," and notes the chicken contains no hormones or steroids, which are barred by federal rules anyway, so why is it on the label if not to deceive the consumer?

The unseasoned Perdue roaster was selling for less than half the price of the Readington Farms roaster ($1.89 a pound), which is fed a vegetarian diet and raised without antibiotics. 

ShopRite rarely puts Readington Farms poultry on sale. A Coleman organic roaster was selling for $2.99 a pound on Saturday with a $2 off coupon attached.

Update

In 2014, Consumer Reports magazine investigated antibiotics and arsenic in food.

Here are links to this blog's discussion of the articles:

Snowy Atlantic cod, arsenic in food and more

Consumer Reports: Buy only antibiotic-free chicken

Now you see it, now you don't

Wouldn't it be great if there was one supermarket with low prices all the time and healthy food, too? Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen in my lifetime, so I have to make the rounds of a half-dozen markets.

Wasn't it only Monday that ShopRite in Rochelle Park had Michigan blueberries for $3.99 a pint and Whole Foods Market in Paramus was selling two pints of Michigan berries for $5 or $2.50 each? (See earlier post, "Which supermarket am I in?")

Today, on the way to the dentist, I returned one and a half pints of the berries to Whole Foods, because they were just too tart to eat, and got a full refund. I walked over to the blueberry display, where the sign now said $3.99 a pint and the fruit was from Nova Scotia (though Michigan still was listed as the origin).

On the way home from the dentist, I stopped at the Rochelle Park ShopRite, where Michigan berries now were $2.50 a pint. I picked up two, telling the woman next to me that they were $3.99 each just two days before, then realized she was a former co-worker whose job was eliminated after 38 years with the company. We did a lot of catching up.