My latest shopping rant. Giant Foods is at it again.

[cantstandbush]

Just over the week-end Giant brand name items increased in price between 10 - 40 cents on a lot of items. Sun Valley grapefruit juice went from $2.79/ 1/2 gallon to $3.19 per 1/2 gallon. Other items on the increase were brand name canned veg and fruit (10 cents for most items.) If you do the math you will find that some items work out to a 20-30% increases. It's worse than gasoline gouging. The re-packaing and charging more for less has stopped for a while because I don't think they can reduce amounts much more without most people noticing. Peanut butter, bread, milk, eggs, yugart, soft drinks, cereal, and fresh fruits and veggies increased the most. I haven't been keeping up with Safeway but i intend to start. McGruders still has the best prices on everything and they haven't been rising like the other stores. In some cases Shopper Warehouse has been fairly stable and certainly cheaper than the Giant and Safeways.

I am not an official price watcher but all my comments on based on stuff I buy from week to week.
(Washinton, DC metro area---Maryland burbs.)

[bluerum]

1. Anything that travels by truck plane will track the price of fuel.

[burythehatchet]

2. This is why core inflation numberd are starting to rise

[jedr]

12. add in bad weather for crops, and fuel and fertilizer in the field;

and food is going no where but up in price.....Be damn glad your not a farmer!

[LostinVA]

3. It's mainly because of gas proces... Giant stores are union, btw

I don't know about your other local places.

[Sherman A1]

4. Prices have been going up

on pretty much all grocery items across the board for the last several years. The ripple effect of fuel and health care are really impacting prices. I don't like it either, but in the end the consumer will get stuck. Of course it is possible that CEO's might just be taking a bigger share home as well. Wouldn't that be surprising?

[Warpy]

5. Brace yourself

because what we saw in the 70s the last time the price of oil rose this much was that everything increased and kept on increasing at double digit levels except our PAY. It takes oil to produce every bit of food we eat, from fertilizers through machinery to plant, cultivate, harvest, package, transport and process.

There's a reason the whole foods thing took off in the 70s. It was the way we fed ourselves when the processed stuff just got prohibitively expensive.

My advice stands: learn to cook. Pay off as much debt as you can. Lighten the load all the way around. Vote progressive.

[MissB]

9. Also, learn to eat locally produced foods, in season.

We have a local farmers market that we can bike to - it opens on the weekends. There are other markets mid-week in town as well. Or I can drive out to an island that produces a great deal of produce and shop at their farm stores.

Not only does the food taste better, but it is cheaper.

I have noticed the food has gone up a bit, but I don't buy much that is processed with the exception of a few food items. I've also been adding to my yard each year - this year I added mushrooms and will add an apple tree and a nut tree, last year it was asparagus, strawberries and a plum tree. While I can never realistically produce all the food my family eats, I can reduce my dependence by having a garden. I take much of my inspiration from a dear friend who grows lots of vegetable amongst his beautiful perennial garden. My chickens provide excellent fertilizer and with time and patience, I can feed my family much better food than the produce I can buy at Safeway.

[onethatcares]

11. everyone can raise some garden item

be it tomatos, peppers, carrots. They can be grown on balconies, in containers, on small lots, mixed in with your foliage plants. They not only taste better and save you money in the long run, they instill a sense of sharing with nature. You don't need a farmette to grow a garden, just some dirt and some seeds. You can cut the amount of thrown out waste by composting and those composters are available on line, and have no smell. It's a win

[MamaBear]

13. Remember the multiple labels?

You'd pick up a can of soup and it would have half a dozen price stickers on it, covering a 15 to 25 cent range? Used to really frost me when I'd see them repricing items already on the shelf.

Prices were going up two to three times a week. And they'd check at the register if you tried to pull a couple off to get a few cents off... not that I would do such a thing ...

[MADem]

6. Food in metro DC is INSANELY expensive

I am appalled at the prices down that way. Horrible!

[politicat]

7. Buy local.

It's the best option really available. I know that the DC area has some really great farmers' markets, and there are some buying clubs where people get together and buy in mass bulk, then parcel out.

Buying local is cutting our food bills by about 40%, and I know who gets the money - the farmers, not the executives.

[FSogol]

8. Food in the DC is always more expensive than other parts of the

East coast. Also, the price has a lot to do with gas prices. Soon, all prices will begin to creep up.

[cap]

10. At Safeway, I bought 1 bag of celery and 1 bag of baby carrots

and spent $3.60.... Well, that's the last time on baby carrots for a while. Unbelievable. I took a turkey carcass and made soup with the celery and carrots... I dont know how to eat any cheaper.

So, it takes about 1/2 hr to earn this food based on a minimum wage of $5.00 -- and we dont want to raise the minimum wage.