The Statesman has an article about grocery price wars in Austin. Our city is currently dominated by H.E.B. and Randalls (owned by Safeway) with some additional competition from Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, and the warehouse stores.
And if she thinks that something is too high at Randalls, she’ll go elsewhere.
“If it’s something I’m not willing to pay for, I’ll check and see if H-E-B’s got it cheaper,” Scott said.
Brilliant strategy there, ma’am.
Signs of the new Randalls initiative were all over the 35th Street store recently.
A case of 24 bottles of Ozarka water was selling for $3.99, down from $5.49. Boneless chicken breasts were $1.99 per pound (with a Randalls Remarkable Card), down from $3.99. Bottles of Gatorade were 10 for $10 (also with the loyalty card), down from $1.69 each.
You know, a real newspaper would have provided size information, and compared those prices head-to-head against H.E.B. A newspaper that wanted to be worth what the Statesman charges might even do something daring. For example, they could put together a standard grocery cart (or even several of them in a rotation), send interns out once a week to do actual comparison shopping at H.E.B., Randalls, Wal-Mart, and even Whole Foods, and then publish the results. (They could even donate the purchased groceries to the local food bank.)
But this is the Statesman.
The case of 24 .5 liter bottles of Ozarka water I found at my local H.E.B. was $3.94. (The H.E.B. only had one case on the shelf, and that case was a “bonus pack” with 28 bottles instead of 24. All the other Ozarka water was in packages of less than 24 bottles.)
H.E.B. boneless chicken breasts were $6.99/pound for “all natural, no preservatives or antibiotics” etc. breasts, $3.99/pound for Sanderson Farms breasts, and $2.99/pound for the Hill Country Fair (house brand) breasts which were also promoted as “natural”/preservative/additive free.
Gatorade was $6 for an eight-pack of 20 ounce bottles, $9.82 for a 15-pack in the same size, and 2 for $2 in the 32 ounce size.
H.E.B. does not have a “loyalty card”.
Edited to add: As long as I’m talking about the Statesman, let me point out their latest series of bizarre TV commercials. The one with food writers Addie Broyles and Mike Sutter is just misguided and dumb. But I don’t know what to make of the John Kelso commerical.
Edited to add 2: And hattip to the Scalz for inspiring my grocery blogging.