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Food Cost Savings–Largest Price Cuts at Salvage Stores vs. Consumer Price Index Market Basket

You can save serious coin shopping at salvage food stores compared to regular supermarkets.  You can know when you’ve found a “real deal” at or below salvage store pricing, regardless of where you shop.  Through it all, you need to know regular supermarket prices, sale prices, and coupon offers whenever you shop. 

This article lets you know which products offer the most savings at salvage stores, when you can do better at a conventional full service grocery store, and how to know you’ve found a deal that requires adding that price to your price list and buying in bulk.

Recent stories tell about great deals at salvage food stores.  Comparison shopping stories also give a tale of the tape showing large savings when grocery prices at a salvage store are compared to the same items and prices in a regular store.  Until now, what these stories lacked were side-by-side comparisons of individual food items tracked on a national basis.

Gnivas compares the prices of certain food items in the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index Market Basket with prices normally found at salvage food stores.  Many market basket prices are updated monthly, providing timely and accurate information.  Except where indicated, Gnivas uses prices from the U.S. City Average market basket price list for November 2008.  For salvage food store prices, we gathered a combination of online price quotes and on-the-ground price studies at several salvage stores. 

This work shows the best price savings are on meats, dairy products including butter, yogurt, cheeeses and other milk products, dried beans, pasta and rice, snack foods (cookies, potato and tortilla chips), coffee and tea.  Other major areas of savings based on years of experience shopping at these types of stores are chocolates and other sweets, gourmet items, salad dressings, and extra virgin olive oil.

Not everything at a salvage store is a great deal.  With named flour, there is little difference between a regular supermarket price and a salvage store offer.  With a coupon, the regular supermaket price is the better deal.  Turkeys can usually be found on sale as seasonal items, and cake mixes are about the same in a regular store as in a salvage location.  A salvage store deal of one can of Progresso soup for $1.59 or two for $3.00 is really no deal at all.  Safeway and its other stores regularly price Progresso soup at two cans for $3, and CVS had the same price a few weeks ago.  Add Progresso coupons of $1 off 2 cans or $2 off 4 cans and you are now buying below salvage store pricing at conventional stores.

What follows are prices you can expect to find at a fairly regular salvage food store.  We do not include coffee at one dollar a pound per ten pounds like you can usually get at Top Line in Grand Prairie, Texas, or occassionally at AAA Salvage in San Antonio.  We do not include the very large Death By Chocolate Ice Cream Pie made for Bennigan’s and sold recently at Town Talk in Fort Worth for $6.95.  We also do not factor in 20 pounds of elbow macaroni for $4.00 (20 cents a pound) recently purchased at an outlet store.

When reviewing this list, there are some items with unknown prices for the CPI market basket and some unknown prices in the salvage store column. Where we have salvage store prices and not CPI prices, understand the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not update all prices every month.  We give you the salvage store price for comparison with your own purchases.   Americans have not stopped eating frankfurters, but the last CPI national average price is from December 1997.  While still included as an item in the overall market basket, canned tomatoes last appeared on the national index in December 1997, and yogurt made its last pricing appearance in March 2003.  When we have current CPI prices and no matching salvage store prices (generally with fresh fruits and vegetables), that is because most salvage stores do not carry these products at a steady enough rate that you should expect to find them whenever you shop a salvage store.   You could find a four pound fruit tray for $4.99 one day and $2.50 the next, and a large variety of frozen items, but these are not things to plan a meal around.

About the Comparison Food Price List

Legend

1. Product  Item and weight.  Unless otherwise stated, all product unit prices are per pound.
2. CPI  Consumer Price Index.  This is the price listed for the individual product in the U.S. National Average of the Consumer Price Index Market Basket.  Unless otherwise indicated, all prices are for the most recent CPI market basket individual tables of November 2008.  You can find additional CPI average price data search tables here.
3. Salvage Salvage Food Store Prices.  These are average current prices taken during the month of December 2008 and the first week of January 2009.  Some prices are ranges (such as flour and rice).  These ranges usually result from prices of bulk products sold by weight in plastic bags and products sold in original containers (such as packages of Gold Medal flour or Adolphus rice).

Other items There are numerous items that are not a part of the CPI market basket but are still found in countless cupboards and pantries.  Two of these are salad dressing and olive oil.  Quality salad dressing such as Girard’s, Cardini’s, Newman’s Own, and The Silver Palate can usually be had at a salvage store for 59 cents per bottle or 2 for a dollar.  For extra virgin olive oil (make sure it says “extra virgin olive oil”), a good salvage food price is 20 cents per ounce.  You can meet or beat the 20 cents an ounce rule combining a good price list to know when stores put items on sale and good coupons. 

Food Prices–U.S. National Average vs. Salvage Store Costs