Grocery Shopping Tips

[BookstoreEscapee]

13 Things Your Grocer Won't Tell You


16 More Tips from Your Grocer

[TelephoneAngel]

If you reach way back for the fresh milk, assuming all stores place todays milk behind yesterdays, you're byuing milk which will go off quicker.

[BookstoreEscapee]

If today's milk is behind yesterday's, that means it's at the back...how does it go off quicker?

Theoretically, the older product will be in the front, on the FIFO (First In First Out) rule. This is what we did when I worked food service in college. New stuff went in the back and old stuff was pulled to the front. Also, most groceries I've seen have a walk-in fridge behind the dairy case, and they stock from the back, so the older stuff will naturally be at the front - moving the newer stuff to the front would take a lot more work.

[lordlundar]

If today's milk is behind yesterday's, that means it's at the back...how does it go off quicker?

The stuff at the front has time to temperature stabilize, while the "fresh stuff" has just recently undergone temperature fluctuations. This actually affects how delicate it is to further temperature fluctuations. So unless you keep a chilled cooler in your cart and for the trip home (a practice that most stores ban), you're going to be subjecting an already delicate product to even more temperature fluctuations, which damages the proteins further, and causes it to spoil faster.

[Bella_Vixen]

Having worked at a grocery store for the last year and a half, the hours of 5-9 are NOT the best time for shopping. Try 9-10. Avoid the hours of 3-5, too.

[AdminAssistant]

Avoid the hours of 3-5, too.

This! It's an unholy combination of after-school and rush hour traffic. Personally, I like 10 am on a weekday if possible. If not, then after 7 pm at least.

[SG15Z]

Having worked at a grocery store for the last year and a half, the hours of 5-9 are NOT the best time for shopping. Try 9-10. Avoid the hours of 3-5, too.

Yeah I call BS on 5-9. 3pm to 9pm is the worst time to shop. And on weekends don't shop from 10am to 10pm. If it's an 24 hour store 2am - 4am is the absolute best time to check out. Why? Because there's usually no one there! Especially on weekdays.

15. Skip the center aisles. That's where you'll find the junk food, like sodas and snack foods.

Nope wrong again. This varies A LOT from company to company. A lot of stores these days though put snacks, chips, sodas, etc. on the perimeter aisles or the aisles at either end of the store. Middle aisle? Well every store is different. Some places will have candy, or magazines. some have there frozen section down the middle(usually older independent grocers), and some put there pomotional stuff int he middle. Again EVERY company is different but snacks and sodas are not in the middle aisles that much anymore.

[fireheart]

Thankfully most of those are unfamiliar to most Aussies. And yes, we do get the Readers Digest over here, but 1) I think quite a few articles are more "localised" to be Australian and 2) it's more of an "elite" magazine down here-in other words, your average bogan is not going to want to read it and become a smartass.

As far as best shopping time goes for my store and a few others, it's more like 7-closing time every night barring Thursday, when it's more like 6-closing time. Weekends-there's no specific "best time".

[trailerparkmedic]

at the article telling me to not buy processed food. Thanks Mom, but I'm still buying my Oreos.

The marketing stuff, especially expensive stuff at eye level and sugary cereal in reach of your kids is true. True story--store was having trouble selling a pair of socks for $5. They then put up a sign saying "Great Deal! 2 pairs for $12" and sold out.

Am I the only one who gets mad when they shrink the size of packages not because of the price increase but because I'm used to using 1 lb of pasta instead of 12 oz?

[Magpie]

I hate shopping after work on a Friday. They're out of everything (although the discount rack will occasionally be really full). I bought the last avocado one Friday recently. (Although I'm sure that I'm not the only person who buys more avocados this time of year, given all the hippies around here). I've known them to run out of peanut butter. Granted, this is because I only buy the plain stuff, and therefore I have to buy store brand, but still.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Nope wrong again. This varies A LOT from company to company. A lot of stores these days though put snacks, chips, sodas, etc. on the perimeter aisles or the aisles at either end of the store. Middle aisle? Well every store is different. Some places will have candy, or magazines. some have there frozen section down the middle(usually older independent grocers), and some put there pomotional stuff int he middle. Again EVERY company is different but snacks and sodas are not in the middle aisles that much anymore.

One of the stores I usually go to (a ShopRite) has the cookies and crackers across from one of the freezer banks. That is the one that has ice cream at one end, frozen pizza at the other, and healthy frozen fruit in the middle. Sneaky, sneaky. The other side of the freezers is more freezers, with veggies and frozen pasta and meals. Then dairy is opposite those freezers on the end wall.

The Wegman's I go to has the freezers pretty much in the middle, dairy on the back wall, and meats in the corner behind the deli, and prepared food and bakery sections.

[SG15Z]

One of the stores I usually go to (a ShopRite) has the cookies and crackers across from one of the freezer banks. That is the one that has ice cream at one end, frozen pizza at the other, and healthy frozen fruit in the middle. Sneaky, sneaky. The other side of the freezers is more freezers, with veggies and frozen pasta and meals. Then dairy is opposite those freezers on the end wall.

Hm my store has cookies and crackers in the same spot. Actually I think ShopRite is a Kroger Division. *checks* Oops no it's owned by a different company. Not sure why I thought that. Sure sounded like one of our divisions, but actually we don't own anything close to that.....lol

But yeah my Division tends to do that with Cookies and Crackers as well, right by Frozen food. In fact frozen Pizza and Ice Cream are on that very same aisle as cookies. Hm guess Kroger isn't the only company to think of it.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Hm guess Kroger isn't the only company to think of it.

The other two ShopRites I'm familiar with don't have the same setup. Though one of them is pretty small so it's kinda set up weird to begin with.