Using an Old Receipt to Illustrate Inflation

[storewanderer]

Google is your friend.

This has nothing to do with the store's intent. It has to do with the recycling industry.

Here are two California super thick bags. One from CVS and one from Seafood City.

Both display a percentage of recycled content that is very high. This is where the old plastic bags from the bins go. They make new bags.

There is a state agency that regulates the messages on the bags about recycled content, the 125 uses, etc. If these are false claims then it means a state of California unit is not doing its job.

[BillyGr]

We have discussed this before at length.

It has been exposed and reported on that most plastic does not get recycled for a plethora of reasons and excuses.

These are bins SPECIFICALLY FOR RECYCLING OF PLASTIC BAGS, not generic "recycling" that is put out with your trash (or wherever you take that).

The stores would have NO incentive to have a bin to collect the bags if they were simply going to pay to send them with trash!

Google is your friend.

This has nothing to do with the store's intent. It has to do with the recycling industry.

I DO NOT NEED GOOGLE - NO STORE would spend the time AND MONEY having special containers made and having employees empty them and store them separately if they were only going to throw them in the trash, they already have trash cans for that!

They also have been used by companies that make all that stuff you can buy that looks like wood but is really not wood so it won't rot - that is made of RECYCLED PLASTIC.

Thus, there ARE places that NEED recycled plastics to make what they make, and thus not EVERYTHING is just dumped somewhere!

[veteran+]

There is no need to shout Billy.

Whatever the stores does has nothing to do with what happens when the plastic gets to its destination.

And whatever the ordinance says or the script on the bag says does not mean for certain that the recycling is a fait accompli.

The stores are doing what they are supposed to do.

[HCal]

Here are two California super thick bags. One from CVS and one from Seafood City.

Both display a percentage of recycled content that is very high. This is where the old plastic bags from the bins go. They make new bags.

There is no reason to assume that the recycled content comes from old plastic bags. They could come from any other plastic product. My understanding is that it is very difficult to recycle thin plastic, so most recycled plastic bags come from plastic bottles and such.

But plastic recycling, as a whole, is inefficient and uneconomical, and only happens when you invest large amounts of money into it. It's not a long-term solution to anything. Stores should be pushing customers towards actually reusing bags.

[HCal]

I always felt like Kroger should eliminate the low quality value label entirely and focus on keeping the most competitive price point on the Kroger brand. Seemed like they were part of the way there... then this Smartway thing happened...

There is some interesting psychology behind this. The way I remember it, when presented with two options, most people will choose the cheaper one, because they view the two options as "standard" and "expensive". But when presented with three options, they view them as "cheap", "standard" and "expensive", and will therefore tend to choose the middle one. So having the low-quality private labels may help Kroger get slightly higher prices on the "Kroger" branded products.

Kroger has had a 3-tier private label system for a long time, so it seems to be working for them.

[Romr123]

Here are two California super thick bags. One from CVS and one from Seafood City.

Both display a percentage of recycled content that is very high. This is where the old plastic bags from the bins go. They make new bags.

There is no reason to assume that the recycled content comes from old plastic bags. They could come from any other plastic product. My understanding is that it is very difficult to recycle thin plastic, so most recycled plastic bags come from plastic bottles and such.

But plastic recycling, as a whole, is inefficient and uneconomical, and only happens when you invest large amounts of money into it. It's not a long-term solution to anything. Stores should be pushing customers towards actually reusing bags.

It's not that it's tough to recycle thin plastic, it is just tough within a single-stream environment. Separate them out (as is done with the recycle bins at stores) and the LDPE is pretty readily recycled. Agreed that the bag not taken (through reuse) is the cheapest of all for the entire system.

[storewanderer]

Here are two California super thick bags. One from CVS and one from Seafood City.

Both display a percentage of recycled content that is very high. This is where the old plastic bags from the bins go. They make new bags.

There is no reason to assume that the recycled content comes from old plastic bags. They could come from any other plastic product. My understanding is that it is very difficult to recycle thin plastic, so most recycled plastic bags come from plastic bottles and such.

But plastic recycling, as a whole, is inefficient and uneconomical, and only happens when you invest large amounts of money into it. It's not a long-term solution to anything. Stores should be pushing customers towards actually reusing bags.

It's not that it's tough to recycle thin plastic, it is just tough within a single-stream environment. Separate them out (as is done with the recycle bins at stores) and the LDPE is pretty readily recycled. Agreed that the bag not taken (through reuse) is the cheapest of all for the entire system.

Well any of these super thick plastic bags in California has to have 40% minimum of recycled content. That is the State Law.

That recycled content is coming from somewhere. It appears the plastic bags are not the problem. It appears other plastic sources that actually CANNOT be recycled may be the problem (such as the reusable bags that are plastic and flock lined or have a stitched handle, no way to recycle those, though after you use them hundreds or thousands of time it may even out the environmental impact vs. if you had just used thin bags had your state not banned those- but wait, what if you had recycled all of your thin bags... probably less environmental impact that way than any other option...). It would appear pushing for plastic bags made of 100% recycled content should alleviate all concerns. But that would throw the Made in China "reusable" bags off the market that certain "Progressive" groups are pushing as "better for the environment."

[storewanderer]

I always felt like Kroger should eliminate the low quality value label entirely and focus on keeping the most competitive price point on the Kroger brand. Seemed like they were part of the way there... then this Smartway thing happened...

There is some interesting psychology behind this. The way I remember it, when presented with two options, most people will choose the cheaper one, because they view the two options as "standard" and "expensive". But when presented with three options, they view them as "cheap", "standard" and "expensive", and will therefore tend to choose the middle one. So having the low-quality private labels may help Kroger get slightly higher prices on the "Kroger" branded products.

Kroger has had a 3-tier private label system for a long time, so it seems to be working for them.

Going back to the intended topic of the thread, this varies. While F4L/FoodsCo does push the "value" line quite hard, mainly due to large displays of the few SKUs in the line, the other Kroger divisions (including Smiths, Frys, King Soopers, Dillons, Ralphs, QFC, Fred Meyer) do not push this stuff; it is hidden on the shelf, no displays, no promotion, and just not something that they promote. They have been discontinuing the owl/Check this Out items at Smiths every reset in recent years and no new items were being added from the line.

My last visit to FoodsCo a customer in front of me was buying an entire case of CTO Napkins and an entire case of some CTO paper product (not sure if it was bath tissue or toilet paper), along with large quantities of some other items; spent close to $300.

Kroger's private label tiers are really only two tiers as I see it:
Tier 1: Kroger
Tier 1.5: Simple Truth

The other labels like Private Selection, Check this Out (now Smartway), and then the oddball non food product lines, are there but not promoted much. Private Selection has a lot of SKUs but most of that line's sales come from a very small group of items (ice cream, deli meat, bakery items).

I know they say they run it as a three tier with Value, Banner, and Premium brand but Simple Truth and the success Simple Truth has, really changes the dynamic of their program. Simple Truth exceeds all expectations (sales, quality, customer loyalty, customer engagement); that brand has been a complete home run for Kroger. Customers who may not have bought Kroger brand, have been willing to buy Simple Truth. Further some customers who bought Kroger brand before "trade up" to Simple Truth (when it was difficult to get those same customers to "trade up" to Private Selection).

I look at the success of Simple Truth vs. that of Private Selection. I think PS has a number of problems. First, some items in the line, just aren't very good despite high cost. Second, the ingredient list on the labels is... often longer than a premium item should be. ST label has pretty easy ingredient lists and product quality is very reliable. ST pricing is also very reasonable; often 10%-20% higher than the normal Kroger item at most (vs. PS which was often twice as expensive as the normal Kroger item).

[Bagels]

$5 Fridays at Albertsons is becoming Friday Frenzy. About half the items are $5, the other half $6.

They're also advertising Buterball turkeys for $1.47/lb. It'll be interesting what the Signature Select price will be - it was .47 in 2020 and .57 last year.

[storewanderer]

$5 Fridays at Albertsons is becoming Friday Frenzy. About half the items are $5, the other half $6.

They're also advertising Buterball turkeys for $1.47/lb. It'll be interesting what the Signature Select price will be - it was .47 in 2020 and .57 last year.

NorCal Safeway has been screwing around for a while but never resorted to this; stuff that had been 4 for $5 became 3 for $5, stuff that had been 3 for $5 become 2 for $5, etc. They kept running bakery/deli promotions at $5 that I had no clue how they were still holding that price point and were really turning into a labor strain on the department due to the demand. They did start to make some offers require a digital coupon/more quantity limits but not sure that was enough.

Of course at Kroger there is no promotion like this.... at all.......