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Tom Winship
11-08-2013, 8:36 PM
I know it is another sign of my age, but does anyone else get frustrated with all the choices you have to make in buying groceries. It's not so much making the choice, as I know what I want, it is about finding it among the 100's of other items of the same category.
Let's take coffee for instance. I worked in a grocery store in high school and the choices were two brands, Admiration and Folgers. In each you chose between regular or drip grind. Now there are 8 or 10 brands with at least 5 grinds and flavors so that instead of the coffee being on "Aisle 14", coffee is "Aisle 14"
I don't mind all the other choices if I knew where the item I want is located. From week to week they move the location so that you get to hunt for another 5 minutes to find it's new location.

The same is true of all other products. It can't be cost effective to maintain all the brands and sub-brands. However, I guess it keeps people employed so that we can come out at the end of each month/quarter and talk about how great the economy is.

My rant for the week.

David Weaver
11-08-2013, 8:42 PM
I don't mind the choices so much, but I don't like having to walk past 8 times as many things now to get to the stuff I want, and I don't like the idea that I pay higher prices for groceries because the grocer has found out that most people will pay more for the same thing if they can pick it from more items.

I'd take fewer items for a lower price no problem - and a shorter distance to walk from the front to the back of the store. I live half a mile from target. It takes almost 20 minutes for me to get milk at our super huge target because it's as far as possible from the door. I never get anything else along the walk when I go for milk. I understand the organic thing, it would be nice to have close access to a place that basically had organic milk and non organic milk. In our target, even, there are something like four or five different brands of milk. The grocery store is the same.

Steve Rozmiarek
11-08-2013, 9:36 PM
Tom, if you want to really get into the coffee choices, get a Keurig. :)

David, how can milk be organic or not? I can't think of any way to differentiate the two...

Tom Winship
11-08-2013, 10:03 PM
Steve, we do have a Keurig. Just didn't want to open that box.

Mike Henderson
11-08-2013, 10:07 PM
There's a saying that:

"Everything in existence when you are born is normal and natural. Everything invented after you're about 35 years old is the work of the devil."

In my humble opinion, it's important to continue embracing the new things (choices) that are available to us.

Mike

Mike Henderson
11-08-2013, 10:11 PM
David, how can milk be organic or not? I can't think of any way to differentiate the two...
Organic is a strange term because milk, by it's nature, is organic, rather than inorganic. I think it has to do with limiting the type of feed and treatments that are given to the cows that produce the milk. Some group has produced a criteria for what's required to call milk "organic". Whether is makes any difference in the nutrition or safety of the product is open for discussion.

Mike

phil harold
11-08-2013, 10:11 PM
Drink Tea
there is still choices, just less
and the the ones you dont like are "not your cup of tea"

Biff Johnson
11-08-2013, 11:44 PM
How about taking a great product and twisting it? Like the Ritz cracker. Beautiful, simple and perfect. Now I have to spend 5 minutes sorting through the array of flavored Ritz, dip-size Ritz, cookie Ritz, etc. Yes I understand the desire to make a profit but usually I just get tired of hunting and move on to another food item.

Bonnie Campbell
11-09-2013, 8:24 AM
Try finding maraschino cherries in a grocery store :eek: The aisles that need checking are: canned fruit, fruit juices, baking, ice cream condiments.... And eventually you'll find the jar as high up as they could possibly put it. I have figured out why fruit salad is a diet food (sort of lol) It's running around the store looking for the cherries.

Tom Winship
11-09-2013, 9:05 AM
Bonnie, you reminded me of a story from my childhood. My mother used to make a holiday salad using green gage plums (whatever they are). The grocery store in my small town didn't carry them and couldn't afford to buy a case to sell 2 cans to us. So my Dad's holiday quest every year was finding 2 cans of green gage plums. Much harder than finding the Christmas tree.

Jim Matthews
11-09-2013, 12:33 PM
"Everything in existence when you are born is normal and natural. Everything invented after you're about 35 years old is the work of the devil." Mike

Sort of explains the generational divide on spray cheese, right there.
I'm beginning to reject "improvements" that are just "adding value" that I don't want.

How many kitchen time savers can be replaced with one good set of knives and a little skill?

I reject the entire GPS navigation scheme for mapped areas. I can't get a mental image
of my route from the section displayed onscreen. When did GPS roll out for all of us?

I had just turned 35...

Myk Rian
11-09-2013, 12:59 PM
My Wife buys coffee at Costco. Easy choice.
If not that, then we'll get Folgers. Easy to find on the shelf. And I use the cans for parts, and other junk.

I keep my GPSs and phone set for North up. Easier than watching the map flip all over the place.

Pat Barry
11-09-2013, 6:41 PM
Hello people, this is America. We are blessed to have the choices we do. Is it really a hardship to us to be able to choose?

Charles McKinley
11-09-2013, 7:07 PM
Find an Aldi near you. Fewer choices. most of the stuff isn't bad and it is considerably cheaper that most other stores.

Option two: Sam's Club click-n-pull- go on line pick out your list, walk into Sams and get your pre filled basket, pay and put it in your car. No searching involved.

Pat: I believe every American should spend at least 6 month living in a third world country. Preferably in a part of it with few modern amenities and a store with a dirt floor where you do your daily shopping. Maybe a monthly 4+ hour trip to visit a nicer store. This would give a certain reference for how blessed this country is. For those that think elsewhere is superior I suggest an indefinite stay if it suits them.

ray hampton
11-09-2013, 7:21 PM
I don't mind the choices so much, but I don't like having to walk past 8 times as many things now to get to the stuff I want, and I don't like the idea that I pay higher prices for groceries because the grocer has found out that most people will pay more for the same thing if they can pick it from more items.

I'd take fewer items for a lower price no problem - and a shorter distance to walk from the front to the back of the store. I live half a mile from target. It takes almost 20 minutes for me to get milk at our super huge target because it's as far as possible from the door. I never get anything else along the walk when I go for milk. I understand the organic thing, it would be nice to have close access to a place that basically had organic milk and non organic milk. In our target, even, there are something like four or five different brands of milk. The grocery store is the same.

four or five different milk brands, we got non-organic and organic ,goat milk, soy milk , if someone did not know which milk they wanted then they would be in trouble

ray hampton
11-09-2013, 7:29 PM
Try finding maraschino cherries in a grocery store :eek: The aisles that need checking are: canned fruit, fruit juices, baking, ice cream condiments.... And eventually you'll find the jar as high up as they could possibly put it. I have figured out why fruit salad is a diet food (sort of lol) It's running around the store looking for the cherries.

I can find maraschino cherries easy as I find green gage plums but finding bottle honey is a different story

Tom Winship
11-09-2013, 8:16 PM
Folks, let me say first that I am truly blessed to have lived 70 years in this country. I traveled extensively during my career and know how lucky I am to have been born here. In spite of its shortcomings, I still think this is the greatest country in the world, as I thought when I served 4 years in the AF in the late '60's.

We are fortunate to have so many choices, even tho it sometimes takes me an hour to find 20 items. My wife wanted Atkins low calorie bars yesterday, and was kind enough to tell me they were in the pharmacy area. I kid you not, a 50 foot aisle was full of these bars, and the biggest hurdle was finding the Atkins section. Once there, it only took me a minute or so to find the flavor and size among the 20 choices.

This thread was more of a joke on me rather than a rant, and I apologize if I got anyone's blood pressure up.

Fred Perreault
11-09-2013, 8:30 PM
Coffee...? Didn't you buy the bag of beans of your choice and then go to the end of the isle at your First National or A&P store and put the beans in a grinder, select your grind, place the bag your beans came in under the grinder, press the button and voila...! you had your custom ground coffee. Actually, when I was younger that was the only way to get ground coffee. Choices....? that was at the vegetable seed rack, Hubbard Squash, yellow squash, assorted carrots and beans, etc. etc.

Now we can buy watermelon in January, potatoes year round, and more cuts of meat than a farm animal knew that it had. I don't know if we are blessed or cursed.... I guess it depends on how much time we have to browse the market. :-) :-)

Larry Frank
11-09-2013, 8:46 PM
I can not believe that people complain about too many choices in the grocery store. That would be about a hundred miles down my list of rants. I do the grocery shopping and a majority of the cooking as I am retired and wife still works. I go to the store early in the morning and avoid the crowds. I enjoy picking out fresh fruit and vegetables. Maybe, I am nutty.

I like the idea of choice and finding new things to have too eat with different flavors.

As for coffee, there is a huge difference in the various brands. Yes, I will pay a little more for better coffee. A few years ago, I went to a coffee plantation and learned what all goes on including the sorting of the beans into higher and lower grades. I do not want the low quality beans.

David Weaver
11-09-2013, 9:45 PM
David, how can milk be organic or not? I can't think of any way to differentiate the two...

Simple. The label :)

My wife gives organic milk to the kid (little kid). I don't believe that the corporate organics do much different than anyone else, too much incentive for them to stay at the limit of what's allowed and negate much of what you'd get in a family farm that was more serious.

I don't drink much milk, though. I understand its importance when people needed to convert their pastures to calories, but most of us aren't homesteading any longer, and I haven't seen any type of adult animals drinking it. Good for baking, though. (the animals don't bake, either, I suppose).

Bill Cunningham
11-09-2013, 10:01 PM
It's like eggs from "free range chickens".. Do you want to eat eggs laid by chickens eating a scientific diet blended to produce safe and generally tasty eggs. The alternative is "free range" where chickens are running around eating anything that moves, and quite often stuff that doesn't. They could be out there scarfing down plutonium pellets for all you know. free range only means "I have no idea what these things are eating....Enjoy your eggs"

Bonnie Campbell
11-11-2013, 7:56 AM
I like having choices, so my issue isn't really about that aspect. In fact I've noticed most grocery stores offering LESS. It's the hunt for things that (apparently) don't fit a specific category, so they move the item to a new area each month it seems.

Brian Elfert
11-11-2013, 8:56 AM
I've noticed major grocery stores seem to do wholesale rearranging of the aisles less often than in the past. It seems like they used to rearrange much of the store about once a year or so, but now they mostly seem to do it every few years in conjunction with a remodeling of the store. I imagine it can't be cheap to design a new layout and then implement it.

A classic example of stores offering less is the response from a store manager when asked why a particular product was no longer stocked. The manager said they dropped the product because it sold too fast and too many people were disappointed by lack of stock. A good store manager would order more product and then have the stock people restock throughout the day.

Mike Henderson
11-11-2013, 9:06 AM
I reject the entire GPS navigation scheme for mapped areas. I can't get a mental image
of my route from the section displayed onscreen. When did GPS roll out for all of us?

I had just turned 35...

You can see the history of the GPS here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS). Those who don't appreciate GPS navigation have never arrived at a strange airport in the middle of the night, while it's raining. Then rented a car and tried to follow the rental car company map to get to your hotel.

Or tried to find a small street at night with poor street signs. I could go on and on. I use it almost daily.

For me, GPS is one of the most wonderful inventions ever made.

Mike

[And just to add: I have very good land navigation skills. Give me a topo map and a compass and I can get you anywhere on foot. But in a car, GPS is a wonderful. If you make a wrong turn, it just recomputes and gives you a new route. If you're following directions someone gave you, you're immediately lost.]

Mac McQuinn
11-11-2013, 10:58 AM
Mike,
There is a vast difference between the words "Organic" & USDA Organic, there are very specific requirements in order to place a "USDA Organic" label on food;http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/...C_CERTIFICATIO (http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navid=ORGANIC_CERTIFICATIO) Rather than getting too far off the OP's thread, I'll just state, If you're really interested in Organics, read everything you can, you'll never look at food the same way again.
Mac


Organic is a strange term because milk, by it's nature, is organic, rather than inorganic. I think it has to do with limiting the type of feed and treatments that are given to the cows that produce the milk. Some group has produced a criteria for what's required to call milk "organic". Whether is makes any difference in the nutrition or safety of the product is open for discussion.

Mike

Michael Weber
11-11-2013, 11:11 AM
It's like eggs from "free range chickens".. Do you want to eat eggs laid by chickens eating a scientific diet blended to produce safe and generally tasty eggs. The alternative is "free range" where chickens are running around eating anything that moves, and quite often stuff that doesn't. They could be out there scarfing down plutonium pellets for all you know. free range only means "I have no idea what these things are eating....Enjoy your eggs"
thanks for the laugh. Never thought of it like that

Mike Henderson
11-11-2013, 11:46 AM
It's like eggs from "free range chickens".. Do you want to eat eggs laid by chickens eating a scientific diet blended to produce safe and generally tasty eggs. The alternative is "free range" where chickens are running around eating anything that moves, and quite often stuff that doesn't. They could be out there scarfing down plutonium pellets for all you know. free range only means "I have no idea what these things are eating....Enjoy your eggs"
Yep, I grew up on a chicken farm. Chickens will eat ANYTHING, including each other.
I have a hard time eating eggs. They have to be disguised in some way.

Mike

Jim Rimmer
11-11-2013, 1:34 PM
I don't drink much milk, though. , and I haven't seen any type of adult animals drinking it. Good for baking, though. (the animals don't bake, either, I suppose).


Animals don't have cookies. :D

I think the big difference in milk is what the cow is given - hormones, etc. Take a look at the figures on some 11 -12 year old girls and wonder if the hormones in milk have anything to do with it. (I don't mean that in a perverted sense. :))

David Weaver
11-11-2013, 1:46 PM
Jim, I think that's all part of the discussion. Hormones in milk and everything else, as well as antibiotics (separate issue). Some of those hormones are present in milk in general, though, and I guess the whole rBST and no antibiotics thing is debatable. I would, if it weren't for my wife's pushing, just get milk that's labeled rBST free and call it good enough for the kids and pocket the difference (which isn't insubstantial). Clearly, I'm not in charge!

Rick Moyer
11-11-2013, 6:49 PM
It's like eggs from "free range chickens".. Do you want to eat eggs laid by chickens eating a scientific diet blended to produce safe and generally tasty eggs. The alternative is "free range" where chickens are running around eating anything that moves, and quite often stuff that doesn't. They could be out there scarfing down plutonium pellets for all you know. free range only means "I have no idea what these things are eating....Enjoy your eggs"
But you WOULD be able to find them in the grocery aisle, look for the glow!

Dave Sheldrake
11-11-2013, 8:46 PM
there scarfing down plutonium pellets for all you know

6 legged chickens takes all the argument out of who is getting which bit I guess :)

cheers

Dave

Tom Winship
11-11-2013, 10:11 PM
Now that would be a hot seller. GPS that would guide me to the item I'm trying to find in the grocery store. Then I really don't give a rat's behind how many choices I have and wouldn't have started this stupid thread to begin with.

Jim Rimmer
11-12-2013, 1:17 PM
6 legged chickens takes all the argument out of who is getting which bit I guess :)

cheers

Dave

If you can catch them. :D

David Hawkins
11-12-2013, 1:41 PM
The only trouble with keurig machines is that I can't get it to make good coffee. Good coffee = 6 Tbls coffee to 6 oz. water, Starts the day out right! :D

Rod Sheridan
11-12-2013, 2:00 PM
Tom, if you want to really get into the coffee choices, get a Keurig. :)

David, how can milk be organic or not? I can't think of any way to differentiate the two...

Organic milk comes from cows.

Non organic milk comes from plastic cows.

Or does organic milk contain carbon and non organic milk is carbon free????????????????????

Mel Fulks
11-12-2013, 2:07 PM
When I was a child the best milk came from "contented cows". Who wants to drink milk from mal-contents ?

David Weaver
11-12-2013, 2:28 PM
Organic milk comes from cows.

Non organic milk comes from plastic cows.

Or does organic milk contain carbon and non organic milk is carbon free????????????????????

I'm really not into "it all comes from the same cows kind of thing". I grew up near Mason Dixon dairy, which was one of the first operations to go 100% confinement and was way ahead of the curve on providing cows with very specific meal rations (and for that matter, was generating all of their electricity way back in the 70s - from cow poop, long before that movement was popular).

Just not a real big fan of the conventional dairies unless they are fairly small scale operations and not 100% confinement and not providing prophylactic antibiotics, etc.

Cows with organic milk, if it is done honestly, will have lower levels of hormone/proteins in their milk (than those supplemented with BGH), lower incidence of mastitis, no antibiotic residue coming through the milk, etc. I think if it's done honestly, it's very likely a better product.

But like I said, I also agree with jack lalanne, and I would imagine if you could split a cohort apart and divide it by:
1) a group of folks who did not drink milk after age 5 other than slight amounts in baking
2) a group that had 2-3 servings of milk per day

You'd find group 1 was healthier and longer living unless you decided to replace the milk calories with jolly ranchers and pork rinds. Of course, I have no way to study that because I'm not a king, but that would be my guess. When people have dietary issues, fertility issues, etc, one of the first things they're told to drop is milk.

If I was a big time milk drinker, I would, without hesitation, buy milk from a dairy that I put hay away for that was a small operation and pastured the animals and didn't provide them preventive medicines or hormone treatments. Unfortunatetly, out my way, there's just not much of that left (and that dairy went out of operation 20 years go), and I know when you go west, the dairies get bigger and the labor gets farther away from ownership. You can see it in how they treat the equipment, etc.

John Sanford
11-12-2013, 2:29 PM
Try finding maraschino cherries in a grocery store :eek: The aisles that need checking are: canned fruit, fruit juices, baking, ice cream condiments.... And eventually you'll find the jar as high up as they could possibly put it. I have figured out why fruit salad is a diet food (sort of lol) It's running around the store looking for the cherries.

If you ran a grocery store, would you put maraschino cherries down where little kids could get to them??? :eek:

John Sanford
11-12-2013, 2:34 PM
four or five different milk brands, we got non-organic and organic ,goat milk, soy milk , if someone did not know which milk they wanted then they would be in trouble

Well, I'm in trouble when I go looking for milk. I can't find what I want. Extra Rich Milk. I haven't seen it in years, all because of the borderline psychotics who think 2% is the way to go. And don't get me started on the sociopaths who serve up cereal with skim milk!! I'd rather pour water with a drop of white latex housepaint in it over my cereal, at least then the liquid will contribute some flavor!

;)

Bonnie Campbell
11-12-2013, 8:35 PM
If you ran a grocery store, would you put maraschino cherries down where little kids could get to them??? :eek:

No, and the stores think the same thing, apparently lol The cherries are ALWAYS on the top shelf. I guess with only buying a jar a few times a year they've plenty of time to switch the cherries to another spot in the stores.

Brian Ashton
11-12-2013, 10:37 PM
If you ran a grocery store, would you put maraschino cherries down where little kids could get to them??? :eek:

Wouldn't matter if you did. Little kids can't read and understand what maraschino cherries means to them with respect to whether it's a junk food or not. Put a chocolate bar (doesn't matter the brand) or any other junk food down there that little kids are conditioned to recognised and you have a problem. You could put a bottle of vodka at eye level for anyone under 4' tall and all but the most feral kids would understand what it was…

I've been casually reading this thread and to sum it up I prefer variety - it tends to show that an economy is healthy and or not controlled by a few multinational companies. Or those that run the businesses understand that even though a particular item doesn't contribute greatly to their profit margin they still stock it because it provides for a more complete service to the public. Here in australia there are 2 companies that control the entire grocery supply to the country and by comparison they aren't in the business of providing variety, or service for the matter. Their focus is to push their in-house brands as much as possible and by comparison this place is a desert compared to North America for variety, the only thing that matters to the two controlling companies is to make their share holders happy, the customer doesn't even rank.

Brian Elfert
11-12-2013, 11:33 PM
At least if you put candy at a kid's eye level it won't shatter when a kid pulls it off the shelf and drops it on the floor like a glass jar of cherries will.

Joe Tilson
11-13-2013, 10:56 AM
John it would make for better sales. Just think how many cherries one could sell!!!!

Jim Koepke
11-13-2013, 12:01 PM
This is thread has been fun for me.

Recently the laws concerning the sale of liquor changed in Washington. Many of the grocery stores rearranged their floors to be able to stock liquor. This was a bit of a disruption.

The cereal aisle is always a bit strange when going from one store to another. Some seem to keep mixing it up. Maybe this gets people to try different brands or something. Some will place all the brands with a similar item like "Bran Flakes with Raisins" all next to each other. They moved my favorite cereal from one end of the aisle to the other end and my wife came home telling me "they don't carry that one any more." Yesterday we were shopping and I couldn't find it in its usual location. Went looking, came back and by chance I noticed the brand badge and realized they changed the package. That happens too much with some brands. Fortunately for me a move and a package change haven't happened at the same time.

With some items a few more choices would be appreciated. Like mustards, sure yellow mustard is okay, but a good deli mustard can really make the difference on a hot dog or burger.

Don't get me started on cheeses. It is almost impossible to find a decent sharp cheddar in any of the major chains. Most of the time the Grocery Outlet has some hard, white medium cheddar from New England that is much more to my liking than the soft, orange extra sharp cheddar available in the bigger stores.

All in all, to get my choices often involves having to shop for groceries at more than one store.

jtk

John Sanford
11-13-2013, 5:01 PM
Don't get me started on cheeses. It is almost impossible to find a decent sharp cheddar in any of the major chains. Most of the time the Grocery Outlet has some hard, white medium cheddar from New England that is much more to my liking than the soft, orange extra sharp cheddar available in the bigger stores.
jtk
Your in Longview, you shouldn't be able to turn around without finding some Tillamook. Aside from that, it looks based on a quick 'Net review that you don't have any of the upscale chains up your way. A nice Vons Pavilions would do the trick.

rogers kevin
11-18-2013, 8:12 AM
Try to sort them out find the best one and choose the best choice.