[Iron Munro]

The Preppers friend.

[Rebelbase]

****FOOD STAMPS BUSINESS MODEL****

[Daveinyork]

There was a Save-A-Lot in inner city York, PA. It closed because there was way too much shoplifting. It was replace by a ctore called C-town supermarkets, which remains open. I haven’t been in it yet. We like BJ’s and the Grocery Outlet.

[dirtboy]

Aldi is much better than Save-A-Lot.

[Nifster]

So the free Ariel works

[southern rock]

The store is located in a mostly empty shopping center with a Family Dollar store next door and a handful of other independent stores. However, the Save-A-Lot store stays busy nearly all hours of the day. In a marked contrast to the atmosphere of a typical suburban supermarkets, an armed security guard stands at the front of the store. "By moving into spaces where other grocery stores have closed or in lower-end centers where others won't go, Save-A-Lot is paying a pretty low rent,"

Sounds absolutely lovely.

[mom4melody]

There’s a New Save-a-lot near me. It’s clean, well organized, the produce is fresh and the meat selection good.

[N. Theknow]

In our town

Publix = Great produce, seafood(on sale), meat( on sale), deli, bakery.

Winn-Dixie = Can't beat their meat. Gasoline credit for spending amounts and special items.

Save-A-Lot = Adequate in most items, outstanding in none. Not financially necessary for me to shop there...yet.

Aldi = Some meats, some produce OK. Not as fresh as Publix or Winn-Dixie.

Local Bodega = Excellent produce! 1/2 to 1/3 the price of Publix. (Still cannot imagine what kind of dish uses cactus, which they offer)

[exDemMom]

I went into Save-A-Lot once, looking for something which I don’t think they had.

It was a little too much of a discount store for me. There is something about the super low price stores that puts me off. The commissary on the military base is further away, but it is decent and the prices are good.

[Dr. Sivana]

SAV-A-LOT is NOT cheaper than Aldi.

[chajin]

In my central FL community, there is a plethora of grocery stores: Publix on the high end, Winn-Dixie in the middle, and Sav-a-Lot, Aldi, and Wal-Mart on the low end. There seems to be enough of a market for them all.

Incidentally, none of them are anywhere near the location of Unity Dr. aka MLK; the closest grocery to there, Albertson’s, shut down three years ago.

[RU88]

Each time I go to Save a Lot I’m amazed at what I walk out with for the price. Do they have everything? No. But you really can get some good deals in there. The key to shopping for any thing is knowing what the true cost of a product or service is. Without that knowledge you’ll never know if you’re saving money or not.

[SamAdams76]

Never heard of this chain before. Here are some pictures. They seem to specialize in pre-prepared processed convenience foods that you pop in a microwave, pour in a bowl and dump milk on top, etc.

It just seems to be that those who are pinching pennies would be better off buying raw ingredients in bulk and cooking from scratch at home.

[metmom]

Publix is expensive.

My husband and I have shopped there when we went to FL to visit his mom, as that’s where she wanted us to shop for her, and it was way over priced.

[Twinkie]

We shop Save-A-Lot, Dollar General, Big Lots and others
(thrift stores). Fang’s sister sticks her nose in the air
at places like that; but she also pays through the nose the
hard-earned dollars her henpecked husband earns. (I’d feel
sorry for him; but he’s a big boy & didn’t have to tolerate
her pettiness. It’s ingrained in her as she was the youngest
child & the only girl in their family.) One of those you’d
like to buy for what they’re worth and sell for what they
THINK they’re worth.

[timeflies]

I went into a Save-A-Lot to buy bananas and was looking at the beef. I saw steaks at a really good price and it was the first time I ever saw meat from Mexico. I didn’t buy any.

[Bigg Red]

This writer was apparently picked up in a bargain store at a deep, deep discount because of defective writing skills.

[ChildOfThe60s]

I live in a small town. We have a Kroger and a WalMart superstore, and a Save-A-Lot.

I do a fair amount of shopping at the Save-A-Lot. The regional brands of canned veggies are high quality. Ditto for the regional brands of frozen veggies. Meat section is small, beef is only OK. Chicken is chicken. But the pork is not only a better price, it is far superior in quality to that of Kroger and WM. Ditto for ribs.

I do the majority of shopping at Kroger, our store is OK, but not at all impressive. WalMart only for items that Kroger doesn’t carry.

But since our town is small & nothing is more that 5-10 minutes away, the Save-A-Lot is very convenient for the items that I do want there. It fills a particular market niche well. Ours is very much a local store. One of the ladies in management I know has been there 20 years.

[blackbetty59]

I’d love to have a good grocery store nearby. Oklahoma, in a lot of areas, is a food desert. In the south we had Publix, and Kroger, and Winn Dixie, and Food Lion, Harris-Teeter, etc. Lots of good grocery stores, within a reasonable distance. Here in Oklahoma, we are pretty much stuck with Reasors, which is our state, almost monopoly, grocery store, and it is expensive. In some areas, you might be lucky to have another choice. If you live in a bigger city, you could be lucky enough to have a Whole Foods, or a Sprouts, Sams, etc. There is an Aldi about 20 miles away from me, but I rarely drive there. Costco and Sams are too far for me to drive. I grow a garden, and can and freeze, so I’m lucky. I don’t buy a lot of meat anymore because even here in cattle country, it is ridiculously high. I usually buy the family packs of boneless chicken breast from Walmart because it is only $1.99/lb, and I divide it up and freeze small portions. Occasionally, I find a good sale on something, and I stock up and put it in the deep freeze. I feel for people who don’t have transportation to get to the store, or a way to grow their own food.

[blackbetty59]

Most of you probably pay either reduced sales tax or no sales tax on your groceries, but here in Oklahoma, we pay the full sales tax on every food item that we buy. For me, in my city/county I pay 9.5% on ALL my groceries. So, that adds significantly to our grocery bills.

[Honest Nigerian]

To suggest that Publix does not know the grocery business is ridiculous. They have had to address several challenges (Target, WalMart, Costco, etc.) and they continue to grow. Next challenge they will face may be from Amazon. If Sav-a-lot is a threat they will figure out how to handle that too.
I suspect that some neighborhoods are not profitable enough, and when you consider the risk to life and limb in some parts of town it makes a lot of sense for Publix to stay out.
Also, Publix needs to have a certain minimum size for a store to work with their model. So when you add in parking and access to the highway there are some locations that don’t make sense.
I don’t shop in Winn Dixie, except for beer ;-) ... but there are still a lot of WD stores out there.