Way back in the ‘60s, there used to be a television game show called Supermarket Sweep. Contestants on the program were each given a shopping cart and assigned a short period of time to wheel through the studio set, which was designed to resemble a large supermarket, while they stuffed their buggies with as many groceries as they possibly could.
When the allotted time was up, a horn would sound and the items in the carts were tallied for a total value for each of the contestants. The winner was the one whose groceries had the greatest value and this lucky shopper was able to take the groceries home at no cost. Generally, the contestants who were the most successful on the show were the ones who spent most of their shopping time in the meat section of the store. The losers, inevitably, were the ones who filled up their carts with bags of puffed wheat.
In today’s harsh world of inflated prices, broken supply chains, and crop failures, it is quite possible that you could win the Supermarket Sweep contest with a few boxes of Rice Krispies. The snap, crackle and pop noises you hear might be the sounds your cashier’s card reader makes when it rejects your debit payment because of insufficient funds.
We are living in hard times. Nowhere is this more evident than when shopping for weekly groceries at the local supermarket. This may not be the Great Depression, but it sure is easy to find yourself greatly depressed. Here you are, trying to balance your budget, shop comparatively and intelligently, while at the same time looking to get the best bang for your buck, but you feel yourself being squeezed in every which direction by escalating prices for even your bare essential staples.
You can swear that even as you stand in the aisle staring at an item on the shelf, you can almost see its price rising. Not only that, but if you look carefully, you will notice that the size of the product is getting smaller. It’s called “shrinkflation” and the packaging is often designed so that you don’t realize that you are getting less. Sometimes the food container may be stretched taller while its width is narrowed or perhaps some optical illusion makes it appear as if your jar of honey has grown in size.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the purchase of coffee. It used to be sold in one-pound packages, which is equivalent to 454 grams. The packages have consistently shrunk to the point that you think you are getting a great deal until someone points out to you that the package contains only 300 grams. How long can it be before you will be buying coffee by the bean?
Similarly, the price of oil has been rising at an almost exponential rate. In particular, the effects of climate change are wreaking havoc on the cost and production of olive oil originating from the Mediterranean regions of the globe. It has gotten to the point where the leakage from a broken bottle of Terra Delyssa cold-pressed extra virgin organic olive oil dropped on the floor in aisle 7B will cause the same kind of mob fervour that the Exxon Valdez oil spill once did as shoppers rush over to soak up the precious viscous liquid with whatever absorbent materials they have handy.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, olive oil manufacturers have taken to selling their products in heirloom bottles, further driving up the price of the goopy liquid to over $70 a bottle. Purveyors of the finer oils market the product in hand-thrown stoneware jugs while Muraglia and Rosanna bottle their olive oil in containers so elegant that they will probably never be opened or taken down from the fireplace mantel.
Something similar can be said about commercial vinegars. You are probably familiar with the old faithful kinds such as rice, red wine, apple cider and balsamic, but there are literally hundreds of other very expensive varieties that are often infused with an assortment of exotic herbs and spices. AVW, for instance, markets a Hot Apple and Pear Cider vinegar which it describes with, “You taste the flavours in three sequential layers — smoke, savory and a little bit of lingering heat at the end.” Also at the extreme specialty end of the vinegar spectrum are Acid League Strawberry Rose, Tart Celery and Brightland Rapture Champagne. Not too shabby for fermented cider or wannabe hooch.
And then there’s gluten. Or, more correctly, gluten-free. Nowadays, almost every food product has a gluten-free option. You can probably buy a jar of pure gluten that has been rendered gluten- free. Don’t be surprised if what you end up with is a jarful of air.
You can also count on the certainty that any gluten-free item will be twice as expensive as the same thing containing gluten. Does that make any sense? Why are you paying more if they are leaving the gluten out? You are getting less so you should be paying less. An old-time Salt Springer and now expatriate, Bevan, used to joke that island potlucks had become so exclusively gluten-free that he was forced to carry a shaker of gluten around with him. You might say he was a gluten glutton.
Nobody asked me, but isn’t it about time that sanity made a return appearance in our grocery stores? It’s getting embarrassing asking for a price check at the cashier counter and then finding out that the prices are indeed really that high and you have to leave several items behind. Are you finding yourself slaloming your shopping cart, which is probably also shrinking, up and down the aisles a second time so you can return items you can no longer afford back onto the shelves from where they came?
I guess the only thing that will make it to the check-out is that big bag of puffed wheat. Gluten-free.