TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Market price survey features boxed wine, orange-apple pairing

Staff graphic by BRIAN MCGILL

Prices held steady on 14 items in our Market Basket selection, while six rose and five fell.

ADVERTISEMENT

By DENNIS JOYCE

djoyce@tampatrib.com

Published: October 30, 2009

TAMPA - You'll find novelties as well as staples in our Market Basket highlights this week.

Some packaging moves are bound to cause a buzz in the aisles: Two boxes of Target's trademark boxed wine wrapped and priced as one, and fresh apples and oranges mixed in one bag so busy parents can still pack a little variety into those lunches.

The tale of the tape this week: Walmart $63.47, Sweetbay $72.19, Target $72.25, Publix $77.55, Winn-Dixie $78.11.

And also of note: We're changing one of our criteria with Market Basket this week.

We used to calculate Buy One, Get One Free deals on our database of prices by cutting the total price in half to arrive at a single unit price. No more.

The rationale: It's an artificial sum. You can't get that product for that cost. Still, BOGOs are a deal for most people and we'll note when they're available.

The move means we'll be reporting higher prices at BOGO-happy Publix, which already has ranked most expensive or next-most expensive in six of the eight weeks we've been doing the survey.

Here are this week's highlights.

Publix

Publix went right for the jugular of indulgence this week.

There are BOGO deals on Pop Secret popcorn, M&M's candy, Hebrew National beef hot dogs, stuffed clams, Hershey's dark chocolate, Banquet frozen sausage patties and links, Emerald nuts (save $5.79), and the coup de grace, Breyers ice cream and Nestle ice cream drumsticks.

Almost as atonement, there's also a BOGO on Fresh Express salad bags.

There are BOGOs on several of our index items this week: 1-lb. Oscar Mayer bologna, Mueller's spaghetti, and four for $10 on Cheerio's 11 oz. boxes, bringing the cost to just $2.50 each.

And the cheese clouds finally parted at Publix as the store put 1-pound blocks of cheddar cheese on sale, for $2.99 each, save $1.30.

Richard Mullins

Walmart

There was a new product in the produce department of the Walmart Neighborhood Market this week: A 5 lb. bag of fresh mixed fruit for $5.87.

The mix contained navel oranges, Granny Smith apples and Red Delicious apples in equal amounts.

This is an ideal product for a busy mom with lunch boxes to pack and not a lot of time to spend in the store selecting fruit. You get the bulk price without having to buy bulk packages of each item.

Janine Dorsey

Target

Target is giving shoppers a break this week on some of its most popular brands.

Some notable deals: Target's famous wine cube is on sale. A box that contains the equivalent of two bottles of wine is $9.99, the same price as the one-bottle box.

Archer Farms box meals are on sale for $3.79, regularly $4.99, and Market Pantry's Pasta Sauce is $1.12.

Shannon Behnken

Sweetbay

Again with the mayonnaise.

This fat-laden condiment is one you love or you hate, and in one recent Market Basket, it drew the attention of all our surveyors so it made headlines.

This week, Sweetbay's treatment of mayonnaise deserves a mention. A new store tag draws attention to a price that's new all right, but 10 cents higher than it's been for weeks. The 18-oz. squeeze bottle of Kraft brand is now $2.99.

We have to use this variety in our Market Basket index because for some reason Sweetbay doesn't sell the ubiquitous 16-oz. jar of Kraft mayonnaise, available at all the other supermarkets. This is the next closest thing.

We have to use a substitute for another item Sweetbay doesn't sell, as well: a 1-pound block of store brand cheddar cheese. The solution so far is two 8-oz. blocks of Hannaford cheddar, at $1.89 each.

Dennis Joyce

Winn-Dixie

Winn Dixie has several of its cheaper staple items on sale this week.

An 18 oz. jar of Jif peanut butter, for example, is selling for $2 with a store card, down from $2.99. Campbell's cream of mushroom soup is $1 a can with a store card, down from $1.67, and a five-pound bag of potatoes can be had for $3, down from $3.99.

That said, the total Market Basket shopping list came in higher than last week, by 4.5 percent.

In part, that's because those deals are offset by price hikes on items such as strawberries, which are up 99 cents to $3.99 for a 16 oz. carton.

You'll also pay $3.49 for the cheapest pound of bacon in the store, Hickory Sweet, up 49 cents from last week.

Jeff Scullin

Editor Dennis Joyce can be reached at (813) 259-7604

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT