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Sold! Bargain-hunters buying groceries at auction

by michael rubinkam

Out of toilet paper? Need to pick up a few things for dinner? Take a number and start bidding.

Many bargain hunters these days are trading supermarket aisles for the auction circuit in search of deep discounts on everything from cereal to spare ribs. Past the sell-by date? Bidders are happy to ignore that detail if they’re getting a good deal.

As consumers seek relief from the recession and spiraling food prices, grocery auctions are gaining in popularity as an easy way to cut costs. The sales operate like regular auctions, but with bidders vying for dry goods and frozen foods instead of antiques and collectibles. Some auctioneers even accept food stamps.

When Kirk Williams held his first grocery auction in rural Pennsylvania last month, nearly 300 people showed up. Astonished by the turnout, he’s scheduling auctions at locations throughout northeastern Pennsylvania.

“Right now, people don’t have a lot of spare pocket change,” said Williams, 50, operator of near Bloomsburg, Pa. “They’re looking to save money.”

Rich Harris, 28, who was recently laid off from his welding job, showed up at Williams’ auction in Dallas earlier this month looking for meat for his freezer and snacks for his kids. With his wife pregnant with their third child, “I’m basically trying to expand my dollar right now,” he said. “The deals, they seem to be fairly good.”

Grocery sales make sense for auctioneers, too. Sales of baseball cards, estate jewelry and other auction staples have “fallen off a cliff,” Williams said. He hopes to average about $12,000 in sales per auction, which would net him a profit of about $1,000.

The popularity of the auctions _ which sell leftover or damaged goods from supermarkets, distribution centers and restaurant suppliers _ comes at a time when people are stretching their grocery budgets by using more coupons, buying inferior cuts of meat, and choosing store brands over national brands.

The economic downturn, paired with the worst food inflation in nearly 20 years (grocery prices spiked in 2008 before easing in January and February), has caused a “seismic shift” in consumer behavior, said Brian Todd, president of The Food Institute, an industry information service.

“Food is one area where they can save,” he said.

The increased interest has fueled growth in the auctions, which can be found in at least nine states from Oklahoma to New York.

Banana Box Wholesale Grocery, a Kutztown, Pa.-based food brokerage that supplies salvage grocery stores around the nation, has seen a marked increase in calls from auctioneers getting into the food business, said manager Greg Martin.

At in St. Mary, Ohio _ where attendance has swelled in recent months _ some regulars have told him they now do most of their shopping at the auction and only go to the store for milk and lunch meat. He estimates his customers can knock 50 percent off their grocery bills.

Cherish Francik, 42, who works for the Social Security Administration, said she wouldn’t have been caught dead at a grocery auction or even a discount food store a few months ago. But the tough economy has turned her into a tightwad.

Now she brags to her co-workers about her frugality.

“Most of my life, I’ve been a brand-name shopper. It was a quick change for me, a real quick change,” said Francik, whose haul from the Williams auction included trail mix, honey-barbecue chicken nuggets and a spiral-cut ham. “I guess it’s sort of a thrill now to find something that tastes good and is the right price.”

Inside the auction hall in Dallas, a small town north of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Williams uses a singsong, rapid-fire delivery to sell everything from frozen broccoli (six boxes for $2) to pork ribs ($20 for a 14-pound hunk) to candy bars (10 Baby Ruths for $2). Especially popular are the frozen foods _ pies, bratwursts, chicken breasts, popcorn shrimp, whole hams, french fries.

Displaying an 11-ounce bag of cheese curls that retails for $1.99, the veteran auctioneer chants: “Dollar and a quarter, dollar and a half. Dollar and a quarter, buck and a half. Buck and a half, buck seventy-five.”

His colleague, Roger Naugle, stops the bidding at $1.50.

“Who wants the cheese curls?” Williams says. “Down there, No. 17 wants two. No. 7 wants one. No. 33 takes two. Guys, who else? These are so good. Anybody else on the cheese curls? Anybody, anybody, anybody else? All fresh and in date.”

As workers fan out with armloads of bags, Williams tees up the next item. And on it goes, for hours. Customers head to their cars balancing precariously overloaded boxes of food.

Some of the goodies have wound up here because they’re out-of-date. But the auctioneers stress that they’re still OK to eat. The Food and Drug Administration does not generally prohibit the sale of food past its sell-by or use-by date _ manufacturers’ terms that help guide the rotation of shelf stock or indicate the period of best flavor or quality.

“There is not one thing in this sale today that Kirk or myself will sell you, that we would not, do not, will not, or have not taken home to our own families!” Naugle tells the crowd.

Linda Dennis, a group home manager from Wilkes-Barre, said she wasn’t fazed by the Feb. 9 sell-by date on a bag of frozen pizza bites.

“The quality and taste may go down, but that doesn’t mean you can’t eat it,” she said.

The same kinds of goods sold at grocery auctions also find their way to salvage stores, flee markets, closeout sales and food banks, though Williams said he avoids merchandise that is severely damaged or well past expiration.

Like any auction, grocery auctions aren’t automatically a bargain. Savvy bidders should know what things cost at the supermarket to make sure they’re truly saving money. The excitement sometimes leads bidders to overpay.

“Every once in a while, a customer bids it, and you’re going, ‘I’m pretty sure that’s cheaper in the store,’” said Schleeter, the Ohio auctioneer.

For the most part, though, the auctions pair food that needs a home with consumers who want to save a buck.

Marvin Mason, who runs grocery auctions in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, said the percentage of shoppers who use credit cards and food stamps instead of cash has increased, indicating more people are showing up out of necessity.

“We’ve had more people who are needy, who have to watch their money,” he said.

http://dailyme.com/story/2009032400004152/

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Across America, a Bumper Crop of Food Gardens

March 26, 2009
AFP

Washington - More than a third of Americans - including First Lady Michelle Obama - are working the hoe at home, keen to grow their own tasty tomatoes, cucumbers and beans.

According to the National Gardening Association, home vegetable gardens are sprouting across the United States with 37% of homes tending a patch - up sharply from 19% a year ago.

"I want to make sure that our family, as well as the staff and all the people who come to the White House and eat our food, get access to really fresh vegetables and fruits," the First Lady said last week as she broke ground on the White House lawn.

But there are several factors playing into the boom. It comes at the crossroads of environmental awareness, increasingly frequent food safety scares and recession's economic bite.

"The number one reason is better tasting food (58%), number two is to save money on food bills (54%) and (third) is to grow better quality food and knowing it's safe (51%)," said Bruce Butterfield, a researcher at the NGA.

He conducted a study on America's would-be backyard farmers, who mean big business for makers of trowels and seed suppliers. Some 43 million homes will be tending a vegetable garden in 2009, up from 36 million in 2008.

And one in five backyard food gardeners - including Michelle Obama herself - will be a first-timer in 2009, according to the Harris poll of 2,500 people.

The move to plant the First Garden came following a public campaign in which more than 100,000 people asked the first couple to plant a garden on a plot somewhere in the 6.5 hectares of White House grounds, according to Kitchen Gardeners International, a group which aims to inspire and teach people to grow their own food.

For Michelle Obama, the garden also creates family togetherness of a sort.

She joked at a ground breaking event last week that "everybody in the family will have to pull weeds - whether they like it or not."

The garden is the first full-scale planting on the White House lawn in more than 60 years when then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden during World War II.

In 2008, facing sharply higher food prices, Americans started digging in larger numbers and tending vegetable plots; 10% of families ultimately coaxed crops from seeds and weeds.

One million Americans already bring their green thumbs to community gardens and demand is huge: another five million would like to do so.

And while about 8O% of American homes have access to a garden or yard, for $20 they can rent a miniplot in an organic community garden run by the National Park Service.

In Washington, which has a long growing season and warm, humid climate, there are about 20 community gardens across the city and waiting lists of up to two years.

Photo: Holly White gardens on her 10 by 37 foot third floor patio of her condominium building in Detroit Friday, May 2, 2008. The renewed interest in urban gardening is reminiscent of the 1970s, when the U.S. economy was rattled by similar economic pressures as today: inflation, high oil prices and an economic downturn. (AP)

Meanwhile garden sharing has taken off. At "Sharing Backyards DC", the website helps link up homeowners with no interest in gardening and green-thumbed neighbors ready to turn the plot into something productive.

Nathan Seaberry, a 55-year-old who gardens at the Blair community garden in Washington, plants potatoes, cabbage and broccoli. "It's better for my health and my wallet, prices of food have gone so high," says the father of seven.

Tough economic times have played a key role in getting people gardening in the cases of 34% of backyard plotters, the study also found.

It also showed that people spend an average $70 on their plots, spend about five hours a week tending them and that the yields are usually worth $530 a year.

"It gives me a sense of security to have the garden," said Leigh Crenshaw, a gardener in her late twenties at the Mamie Lee community garden here. "I'm sure I'll figure out a way to survive, whether or not I have a job. But this garden and my community will keep me strong."

Health scares also have played into the passion for the plow.

"These ongoing food safety issues like the peanut butter and the spinach contaminated with E.coli have become even more a matter of concern for people," said Robert LaGassi, executive director of the Garden Writers Association.

Seed sales are up 20-30% in early spring 2009 above 2008's 20% gain as Americans find comfort during challenging times by spending more time at home, said the NGA's Butterfield.

In these trying economic times, he said, "I think people now feel the need to go back to basics." - AFP

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=22&art_id=nw20090326071315506C237865

http://www.millennium-ark.net/NEWS/09_Food_Water/090326.bumper.crop.of.gardens.html