Is the Price Right: Back to Basics
Grocery shopping when you forget your list is never fun, but at least you’ll always remember the five basics — bread, milk, eggs, orange juice and cereal. So this week for “Is the Price Right?” five area grocery stores — CVS, Giant, Safeway, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods — went head to head as The Georgetowner team went back to the basics to explore the prices of the simplest grocery items.
Whole wheat bread can be found at a low price at Safeway with its name brand item for $1.49. It’s also fairly cheap at Giant for $1.99. Trader Joe’s charges $2.59 for a loaf of their name brand bread and CVS Nature’s Valley bread is $3.49. Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value brand is $2.99 a loaf.
Whether it’s to put in your cup of coffee or for the kid’s breakfast cereal, everyone needs a gallon of milk on hand in the morning. The cheapest place to find a gallon of 1 percent milk is your local Trader Joe’s for $3.29. Safeway, Giant and CVS are all relatively priced at $3.79, $3.99 and $3.89. Whole Foods is the most expensive for a gallon at $5.29.
Trader Joe’s and CVS have the best-priced eggs at one dozen for $1.99, while Giant sells eggs for $2.19. Safeway name brand eggs are $2.29 and Whole Foods’ eggs are $2.59.
Safeway advertises the lowest priced orange juice with their name brand 64-ounce container for $2.50. Giant and Trader Joe’s name brand juice costs $2.79 and $2.99 respectively. CVS Florida Orange Juice costs $2.89 and Whole Foods brand name orange juice is $3.99.
Corn flakes are an old favorite and Safeway’s 18-ounce box only costs $2.59 as opposed to products like CVS’ 12-ounce Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Trader Joe’s 12-ounce Oatmeal Flakes that cost over $4. Giant’s name brand 18-ounce corn flakes cost $2.59 while Whole Foods’ 18-ounce name brand cereal costs $2.59.
Visit our Web site at www.georgetowner.com for a complete breakdown of prices. Make sure to check back next issue for more great shopping deals!
While it is an interesting exercise to compare prices at area grocery stores, it is important to delineate apples from oranges so to speak, and this is where this experiment goes awry. Products from Whole Foods and often Trader Joe's, are commonly known to be more wholesome choices and so we cannot come to an informed conclusion from the limited information here.
From the article we don't know if the corn flakes have added flax, wheat germ or bran. Perhaps they are further enhanced with natural fiber or other healthful nutrients...maybe whole grains are used and the product is non-GMO or organic. Ditto in regards to comparisons between the different breads.
What about the eggs? Free-range, organic, cage-free, locally-sourced? Or raised in tiny cages, beaks and feet cut, feed dyed with food coloring and hormones and antibiotics added. And the milk? Let's not forget the increased nutritional and environmental value inherent in consuming food raised and or prepared in a humane, non-GMO, organic and sustainable environment.
It's only fair to compare prices when we know what we are getting in return in dividends to our health and that of our planet.
Thanks
What a well executed read.
This surely makes perfect sense to me...