Posted on 11/12/2019 10:18:52 AM PST by Red Badger
Many stores have loss leaders. Convenience stores as an example are generally more expensive on every item than any grocery chain store and yet often they will sell milk for less than the large chain stores.
Whatever the reason I like paying $.98 per gallon for milk and it tastes no different than the $4.00 per gallon milk.
BTW, the Walmart Super Store a couple of miles down the road sells milk for about $2.50 per gallon.
What is it about Oklahoma that fosters price gouging for common things? There is a whole list of things that begin with: “What is it about Oklahoma that _______? Other examples, car insurance, house insurance, medical insurance, even new roads just fall apart, medical care in rural areas is all but absent, etc. But we have a pot store on just about every corner and a casino on the ones without pot stores. who hooo.
We grew up here and went away for more than 30 years to work. What we came back to is a disappointment. Maybe we grew and Oklahoma didn’t. Not sure but I am sure it is a disappointment but here we are and we haven’t mustered the energy to move and am not sure where to go that is worth the trouble.
Walmart for groceries weekly, drive 25 miles or more to Aldi every-other-week, internet for a whole lot of supplies and repair parts. I’d trade local but I can’t buy what they don’t have and that is most things I need. Just amazing that Tractor Supply is always out of so much of what most people buy. Just about every trip there results in what I can make do with instead of what I really need. Trying to trade local is like Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football. Every time I give them another chance they jerk the football away!
United and Homeland are Harps? I did not know that. What is the name of the parent group? I thought Harps was employee owned. What about Super Saver?
BTW, not trying to start an argument here but a little research shows:
United is owned by Albertson’s
Homeland is owned by Homeland Acquisition company out of OKC and has 79 stores (Many stores were once Safeway before they sold out in the region)
Harp’s is employee owned and HQ in Springdale, Arkansas and is supplied by Associated Wholesale Grocers out of Kansas City. Harp’s has good stuff but can be a little pricey.
We like Aldi the best for most stuff. All our beef is grass fed and grain finished here at the farm and we eat out of the garden about half the year.
That’s ok. It’s hard to keep this stuff straight, but several of the stores I mentioned are under the umbrella of AWG, Associated Wholesale Grocers. They purchased Homeland and United, as well as Harps, if I’m not mistaken. Here’s a part of their Wikipedia page:
Homeland filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2002, at which point it was bought by and became a subsidiary of Associated Wholesale Grocers. The supermarkets still operate under the “Homeland” name.
In 2004 the company acquired three Country Mart supermarkets in Lawton, Oklahoma. In 2005 the company purchased seven stores in Wichita, Kansas from Falley’s. In 2006 the company purchased the remaining fifteen stores from Falley’s. In June 2007, Homeland purchased seven stores from the Albertsons grocery chain.[5] In January 2008, Homeland purchased the 26-store United Supermarkets of Oklahoma chain.[6] On November 14, 2008, Homeland purchased five Williams Discount Food stores, formerly Albertsons. This purchase became official December 14, 2008. In August 2011, Homeland purchased the three-store Super Save Food chain.[7]
I know what you mean. A used truck in Oklahoma costs at least twice what it does in Northern Illinois, where I’m originally from. It’s as if they’re lined with gold, or something. Oklahoma used to have low priced beef, but not anymore. Dairy’s always been high. I will give them credit for one thing. (And it’s more local than state). Real Estate taxes are ridiculously low. Ours are low because we live in a dumpy little town, with a good number of landlords. Some of these landlords run the whole town, and somewhere along the line, they passed an ordinance that only property OWNERS can vote in local elections. How’s THAT for crooked?
Sounds reasonable to me that only propertied people can vote. Wish it would go national.
What a parcheesi board! Talk about fruit basket turn over.
My info came from what look like current web sites.
“American Milk is too heavily processed. Milk in general is okay.”
We get raw milk directly from a small scale producer here, buying it as “pet food.” It is about 20% cream and Mrs. Crusher makes yogurt (we eat a lot) butter and cheese. We get 2 gallons a week.
I know what you mean. I read the whole article, and I still don’t really understand who owns what.
So not all the Divcos are gone.
The used truck in Oklahoma is actually lined with figurative gold, or at least not lined with rust. What’s going on (among other market forces) is that people up north want rust-free trucks and are driving the pricing up with their demand. Go sit on I-35 and watch the semi-trailer loads of used trucks head north.
Walmart’s milk is currently overpriced. In Dallas, Walmart milk is twice the price of Kroger - and Dollar General even runs the premium Oak Farms milk as a loss leader at $2.50 a gallon.
Wow, glad to see it’s still alive and kicking. Those trucks have quite a club following for restoration, but don’t do any “service” anymore.
I did not know skim milk had that much sugar.
I love and drink milk,gallons a week, but never had skim.
What would be the reason? Weird..
It is not, compared to other liquids. considering you need acres of farmland for cows to graze, or to otherwise provide food for. And "Dairy cows eat about 100 pounds of feed and drink 30-50 gallons of water (about a bathtub full) each day." - https://www.drink-milk.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-dairy-cow/
And vast barns house them in, and be milked at least twice a day, and which must be refrigerated immediately. All to get about 6 gallons of milk a day from each massive cow. .
And graded and transported (sometime hundreds of miles in refrigerated trucks) and off-loaded into refrigerated tanks at the processing plant.
Then tested, processed (clarified, pasteurized, homogenized, etc., and sometimes micro-filtered, and given ultra high temperature treatment, and or flavored), packaged and refrigerated. .
Then delivered in refrigerated trucks to stores at least twice a week.
And which has a shelf life of only about 14-20 days after milking (but only hours in hot weather without refrigeration.
Compared that with any other liquids you drink, for while they are usually cheaper, there is far less cost and labor required for them.
You may pay about 2 cents an ounce for a 2 litre bottle of soda, while "in 2018, the average retail price [per gallon] of whole fortified milk in the United States was 2.85 U.S. dollars, the lowest price since 2002 and a decline of 26 percent from the 2007 peak of 3.87 dollars. - https://www.statista.com/statistics/236854/retail-price-of-milk-in-the-united-states/
And what is soda but sugar water, color and flavor and preservative. No refrigeration is needed, the shelf life is typically considered to be 39 weeks for regular sodas and 13 weeks for diet sodas.
Note bias: I used to work at a dairy farm for about 18 years.
Skim Milk is basically Milk with everything removed except the Lactose which is a Sugar
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