Posted on 12/21/2013 6:42:24 PM PST by lee martell
Today I went to a local supermarket in the Terra Linda area of Marin County, a little north of San Francisco. This large grocery store is but one of many belonging to a very popular grocery retailer. So, I bought six pounds, and eight ounces of chicken thighs at $1.79 per pound. After a little walk around comparison, I see most are within this price range. I end up paying $10.88, minus $1.21 with my Club Card, that equals a grand sum total of $9.67 out of pocket. The store is a great place to shop. The areas are clean. I even know some of the cashiers individually. The employees don't run away or openly sneer if you have questions about location. It's a huge store, and the less ambulatory or the tired have been known to shop from a golf cart. The store has a self check that I only use when in a big rush. I prefer not using the self-check, and let the paid cashier do the necessary thinking to get me through the line. So what am I complaining about? Well, the price. A few months ago, this same package of chicken thighs, wings or drums would have cost me much less. I am estimating, this pack of meat I just paid $9.67 for (with discount) would have cost me about $5.40 or so (with discount) only six months ago. What has changed? Maybe the gasoline for the trucks has gone up. They may be using diesel. The gas price has been somewhat stable at $3.45 to $3.90 up and down for the last year. Maybe the price has changed because people will keep buying it. Has there been a Chicken shortage in the states? That would be bad news for KFC.
It’s not the price of corn. Ask a farmer. Corn is at its lows for the past several years.
OMG
You are assuming that everyone has that option.
Some can not, because they can not afford to pay ten times the price of the actual poultry itself just to get it pre-cooked. Some because paying someone more for a piece of food pre-cooked by someone else (and trusting them not to spit in it as that great racist enabler jesse jakson admits he regularly did is not something all are willing to do. And some, because there IS no KFC within 75 miles of them.
Or a Golden Arches, BK, Wendy's, Arby's, Carl's Jr, Jack in the box, or even a Der Wienershnitzel or Dairy Queen even.
OR a Taco Hell...
It’s called inflation… all grocery prices have gone up drastically. The government refuses to acknowledge this...
I think it was about 2005 that they stopped including the prices of housing, energy, and food in the calculations of the inflation numbers, because, they said, those particular prices were “too volatile”. I think those items are still excluded.
“Going to KFC sounds a whole lot easier.
You are assuming that everyone has that option.
Some can not, because they can not afford to pay ten times the price of the actual poultry itself just to get it pre-cooked. Some because paying someone more for a piece of food pre-cooked by someone else (and trusting them not to spit in it as that great racist enabler jesse jakson admits he regularly did is not something all are willing to do. And some, because there IS no KFC within 75 miles of them.”
I keep Spam for emergencies; Spam is not outside the economic reach of anyone, it’s even eligible for food snaps. Can’t deal with the chiggen, fix some mystery meat.
Taco Hell, LOL!
I grew up so poor, pretty much the only 'meat' product we could afford on a regular basis was SPAM. There is a reason that is the nickname that particular vile product was hung on all unwanted and disgusting computer data.
I had to eat so much of it over so many years, to this day I can not even think about the taste of it without the instant gag reflex beginning. Some days, it just was too much and I went without anything. Yes, I was a very skinny lad as a result.
As a comparison, try eating nothing but Spaghetti-O's for the months of November through April (as I did one winter), and see how you feel about eating it ever again for the next three to four years.
I live in Southern California, and have also seen the steep price increase in chicken.
Foster Farms, the biggest chicken processor in the state, has had some problems with salmonella contamination. Even though there has not been an official recall, several retailers have removed Foster Farms chicken from their shelves. I am sure this is a factor in price increase
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/18/business/la-fi-foster-farms-20131019
http://foodpoisoningbulletin.com/2013/foster-farms-salmonella-outbreak-sickens-416-in-23-states/
Those were my sale prices in NJ, 3 years ago. I moved to EBF, Pennsylvania and I am lucky if thighs are less than 89 cents/lb. Everything in this town is expensive.
Criminy, shoot the thing before it feeds on your guests!
Fiber One muffins, recently discovered on a shopping trip, taste BETTER to me than Thomas. And cost less.
Food is super cheap in Texas for some reason and even a gallon of milk is only 1.99 and last year it was 99 cents.
When we travel back to Boston to see the family we can’t believe what people are paying for food because they are paying triple the price of what we pay.
Maybe Employee Unions are much stronger in Boston than in Texas. The contractual demands of hiring bonuses, med. benefits, vacation benefits, retirement benefits, longevity of employment benefits, litigation of termination or disciplinary costs, tends to add up. On the whole, I get the impression the Unions are not the total Hydraheaded Longfanged Monster they used to be in the 60s or 70s.
I’m thinking maybe states have hidden taxes in food and they very in each state.
>The anti-bloating agents are used to make the chicken >smell and appear as real chicken
you mean, its not really chicken??
Joe - Bump!
Sal - “Ia! Ia! Check out Post #56.”
younger Millennials and older Gen-Zs “don’t do bones”, so I’ve been told by some of their grandparents. Hand them a chicken leg, and they stare at it, at a loss of what they’re supposed to do with it. Yes, they are that disconnected from the origins of their food.
Not true, but it is a good place to look for them.
Ditto flank steak! Also sweetbreads, both in the late 50s, well into the early 70s. When my mother was a girl, liver was given away free "for the cats".
During the "soul food" craze, I felt sorry for poor blacks: chitlins went to over $2/lb, in markets that had never, ever even considered selling them before, while their chuck roasts were still running 50-60 cents/lb, and their Aussie 'rock lobster' tails were $1 each.
I was about 12, and asked a butcher my dad was getting a side of beef from, why, if each side only had one flank steak, and therefore they were rare so should be valuable, was it so cheap? Both of them roared with laughter, and explained that they were glad they were rare, because 'they were tough, stringy, and there was no good way to cook them; they don't even grind well. THAT'S why they are cheap'!
Some people want to know that their chicken is what it’s claimed to be.
we don’t cook chicken that we didn’t hear cluck or crow, so may be a tad bit prejudiced. At least we know what it ate, and where it came from...and each one eaten is one less beak to feed.
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