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| Coupon clipper: Tonya Brown in Decatur, Ga., uses the Web and radio shows to find bargains. Patrik Jonsson |
Sticker shock at the supermarket
U.S. families use ingenuity and belt-tightening to save on mounting grocery bills.
from the June 11, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
Local grocery stores are trying to undercut the big-box retailers as best they can. Both Publix and Kroger in Atlanta were offering penny rolls of toilet tissue this week to try to bring shoppers in. The stripped-down, cut-rate German grocery store Aldi, with about 850 outlets in the US, is moving rapidly to suck up sticker-shocked consumers. A May circular featured bacon-wrapped filet mignon for $1.99 apiece.
At the same time, the restaurant industry is seeing customer numbers drop even as some restaurants are raising menu prices or reducing portion sizes to balance their own inventories and cost. Sixty-one percent of restaurant owners in a recent survey say their sales numbers are sliding even as the industry faced flour costs going up by 78 percent, the cost of eggs up by 73, and cooking oil up 49 percent, according to Annika Stensson of the National Restaurant Association.
At a conference in Phoenix last week, the Nielsen marketing company told consumer packaged goods companies that recessionary spending habits by Americans are forcing producers and retailers to adjust their strategies on the fly as grocery store competition heats up.
"Consumers are feeling the squeeze as they are caught between rising costs and lower spending power," Eugene Roytburg, managing director of Nielsen, told the conference. "As a result, many consumers are reprioritizing or altogether changing their spending habits."
Kroger clerk Grady Thompson says prices are "the worst I've ever seen them," as usually choosy, upscale customers empty out the "10 for $10 bins" of canned foods in midtown Atlanta.
In Camden, Ala., where the median income is $16,646, Nelda Hunter is in full scrimp-and-scrounge mode. "It's very simple, just changing a few habits," says Ms. Hunter, a clerk at Loftin's Bait Shop, in a phone interview. "You don't go to the grocery store hungry to start with. And it's basically doing a menu situation about getting a list and buying nothing but what is on the list."
Just in the last month, Atlanta mom Tammy Heath started inspecting the Sunday circulars and shops accordingly. "These days, I go where the sales are at," says Ms. Heath.
Larger families may be feeling the pinch the most, says Maureen Doyle, executive director of Moms of Super Twins (MOST), an advocacy group in East Islip, N.Y. One family with triplets and both parents working lost their home to foreclosure and are now living in a national park in Georgia, she says.
"Milk, veggies, fruit, rice, all have gone through the roof," says Ms. Doyle. "No working mother should have to cook on Friday night, so we used to always order three pizzas for the household. That is out of our budget now."
"Families in crisis don't look toward tomorrow, they're just trying to get through today, and that's pretty much what I'm hearing," she adds.
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