Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

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storewanderer
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Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by storewanderer »

I noticed Pantry Essentials Pizza Sauce at Dollar Tree. It is distributed by Lucerne Foods and the packaging is redesigned from the previous Pantry Essentials Safeway used to carry. This is manufactured in a CA Safeway plant that makes various high quality glass jar tomato-based products (especially the very excellent Signature Select Southwest Salsa). I'm not sure if it is the exact same as the Signature Select Pizza Sauce, but the ingredients look very close, with things like Romano Cheese and Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which are far above what you would expect to see on off brand pizza sauce let alone one in a dollar store. This packaging looks far more attractive than "Value Corner." I question why they are selling this stuff to dollar stores.
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Re: Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by Alpha8472 »

Dollar Tree has sold many products with Lucerne Foods in the fine print on label. I believe that there was bread and various other items. The bread looked decent, and the other foods seemed to be decent quality as well. I do not know if Lucerne Foods still makes the bread for Dollar Tree.

Is Pantry Essentials going to be a regularly stocked brand or is it just excess unsold product that a manufacturer sold to Dollar Tree?
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Re: Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: December 13th, 2020, 8:34 pm Dollar Tree has sold many products with Lucerne Foods in the fine print on label. I believe that there was bread and various other items. The bread looked decent, and the other foods seemed to be decent quality as well. I do not know if Lucerne Foods still makes the bread for Dollar Tree.

Is Pantry Essentials going to be a regularly stocked brand or is it just excess unsold product that a manufacturer sold to Dollar Tree?
The bread at Dollar Tree at this time seemed to be from a different provider. I think they were using "Busy Baker" until earlier this year- another old Safeway label.

The bread at 99 Cents Only in the "Nature's Cupboard" label is produced by Safeway.
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Re: Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by BillyGr »

Alpha8472 wrote: December 13th, 2020, 8:34 pm Is Pantry Essentials going to be a regularly stocked brand or is it just excess unsold product that a manufacturer sold to Dollar Tree?
That would be an important question. Dollar Tree has, from time to time, had things that are quite unexpected for sale for just that reason.

A couple years back, for instance, they had Miracle Whip (the big bottles that are $4+ in most stores) in there - the catch being the expiration date was only a couple weeks out, so obviously something someone had too much of and wanted to get rid of for even a few cents back vs. paying to dispose of it.
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Re: Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by storewanderer »

Tried the Pantry Essentials Pizza Sauce out. Was a bit nervous out of the jar as the stuff seemed a bit gritty or something, but the taste was great (same as the Signature Select one). Maybe it was the bottom of the production batch or something; rather strong Romano taste, seemed to have one or two small chunks of tomato peel inside, and a lot of green flakes of some kind of herb. Made the pizza anyway. Whatever odd texture thing was going on with the sauce in the out of the jar form, it resolved itself while cooking and the pizza tasted great.

Definitely worth the $1 at Dollar Tree, compared to the $1.79 or whatever it is that Safeway charges for the Signature Select version. I always find it funny how Safeway does this where they sell their manufactured items to these low priced competitors who sell items for significantly less than Safeway's own stores. I understand they must have capacity, but it would seem using that capacity to make stuff for their own stores and to price it better would drive traffic...

Also the updated Pantry Essentials logo looks like another knockoff of Essential Everyday.
TW-Upstate NY
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Re: Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

storewanderer wrote: December 13th, 2020, 9:14 pm The bread at Dollar Tree at this time seemed to be from a different provider.
At one point maybe 10 years ago or so, Dollar Tree in this area featured Hauswald's bread from Baltimore. Was an old line family run company until being sold to Schmidt many years ago. I think they also had rolls as well from time to time. Don't shop much there anymore so I'm not even sure they have bread in their local stores.
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Re: Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by storewanderer »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: December 23rd, 2020, 10:01 am
storewanderer wrote: December 13th, 2020, 9:14 pm The bread at Dollar Tree at this time seemed to be from a different provider.
At one point maybe 10 years ago or so, Dollar Tree in this area featured Hauswald's bread from Baltimore. Was an old line family run company until being sold to Schmidt many years ago. I think they also had rolls as well from time to time. Don't shop much there anymore so I'm not even sure they have bread in their local stores.
I think Dollar Tree has switched to breads that have a special longer shelf life (like a month) by Hostess or similar providers. These breads can go through Dollar Tree's distribution network vs. a vendor bringing them into each store.
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Re: Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by storewanderer »

Pantry Essentials Salsa is now at 99 Cents Only; $1.99. Same as the Signature Select Salsa at Safeway that sells for probably twice that much...

Not sure why Albertsons is reverting back to this old Safeway formula of selling high quality manufactured items that are far better than typical private label quality for these categories, to discount stores that will then sell it for 1/2 what Safeway sells the same exact product under their private label at. It seems like it would be a better idea to just sell this stuff at Safeway/Albertsons and price it very low, run high volume, and use it to draw customers into the stores. Oh well. Overpriced private label items spike up profit margins to make Wall Street happy I guess.
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Re: Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote: January 16th, 2021, 10:15 pm Not sure why Albertsons is reverting back to this old Safeway formula of selling high quality manufactured items that are far better than typical private label quality for these categories, to discount stores that will then sell it for 1/2 what Safeway sells the same exact product under their private label at.
Was there any change in packaging design? In past years Safeway would sell off inventory with old packaging designs to discounters like 99 Cents Only and Big Lots.

Also, if they had excess inventory that is nearing their expiration dates they would do the same thing.
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Re: Safeway Pantry Essentials Brand?

Post by storewanderer »

klkla wrote: January 17th, 2021, 2:26 pm

Was there any change in packaging design? In past years Safeway would sell off inventory with old packaging designs to discounters like 99 Cents Only and Big Lots.

Also, if they had excess inventory that is nearing their expiration dates they would do the same thing.
This is a new package design. It has a recent date on the back of the label (the "RD" date representing when the label was last re-done).

This is how it looks:
This is the Pizza Sauce at Dollar Tree: (for $1 each there)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/224103489683

The Salsa at 99 Cents Only has a similar package design; more colorful packages.

I actually think these packages look good. Far better than "Value Corner" or the old Safeway version of Pantry Essentials.
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