Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

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storewanderer
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Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by storewanderer »

Reno Natural Grocers has had a cheap looking banner on its building for the past 4-5 years advertising 1.99 dozen eggs. That is all the banner says. It doesn't specify anything else.

Until recently this wasn't really worth looking into but now with eggs ranging in price from 3.59 to 7.99 per dozen at other stores (lowest cost option at each store) it was worth looking at.

Went in a few days ago. Usual for this store- a few other customers, dead/off vibe, well stocked, neat, clean, hardly any meat/dairy, and fair prices on pretty much everything they sell but no screaming bargains beyond the eggs.

Found the eggs and they have two cooler doors full of eggs. This is funny, since they only have about 8 containers of milk for sale total in the place (due to lack of customers). Most of the milk they had was chocolate milk with a 1/7 expiration, from a dairy in Iowa (no clue how this is cost effective to transport out to Reno), wasn't the ultra pasteurized stuff that has a long shelf life.

Signs posted on the two coolers doors said LIMIT 4 EGGS PER DAY PER CUSTOMER. Then they have various varieties of eggs, various, and this 1.99 price point is if you have their loyalty card (easy enough to sign up), and it applies to a couple different dozen of large brown egg SKUs (regular 3.99 and regular 4.99). Then they had some other eggs that were also on a promotion but those were 2.99 (regular 4.59) with loyalty card. They don't appear to have any other loyalty card based pricing in the store besides the eggs, though they do have about 10 digital coupons available on the loyalty website to load to your card.

Noticed the eggs were also distributed by someone in Iowa.

I am curious how this chain can keep offering eggs at this 1.99/dozen price based on the current egg pricing situation. Either they are losing a ton of money, their supplier made them a deal and is selling the eggs way below market, or, who knows.

They also have a free Natural Grocers calendar provided at checkout. Haven't seen a store do a calendar in years; used to find these at the pharmacies sometimes but it has been a while.

Also in reviewing the receipt I do not have anything to return but I do not understand their return policy. The return policy states ID required for returns (okay, that is not uncommon), receipt required (again, yes, this is not unusual), then the weird part- it says LIMIT TWO ITEMS RETURNED PER RECEIPT. What kind of a policy is this? So if I buy 2 items I can return 2 items? But if I buy 35 items I can only return 2 items? I don't understand a policy of this nature. I don't plan to return anything to this place anyway but this is a policy I've never seen before saying you can only return 2 items per receipt.
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Re: Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by Alpha8472 »

There was a news article that I read today that indicated that egg prices are really going up, but grocery stores are not raising the prices right away. They do not want to shock customers and drive them away. The eggs are sold at a loss in order to keep customers shopping. If you see eggs at outrageous prices it influences you to not buy as much in the rest of the store.

Grocery stores lose money on eggs, but they need to keep prices low on staples or customers will lose confidence and cut spending on other more profitable items.

The return policy is to limit fraudulent returns. People shoplift and then dig through the trash cans for receipts and then return tons of items to get cash. Many returned items cannot be resold and are a loss for the store.
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Re: Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by mjhale »

Alpha8472 wrote: January 2nd, 2023, 3:41 am Many returned items cannot be resold and are a loss for the store.
I had this happen at Walmart. I had purchased my Dad two plastic bottles of cranberry juice. On the way of of the store I noticed they had a larger container of the cranberry juice with a handle on the bottle that would make it much easier for my Dad to handle. I went to return the two smaller containers I had purchased. When the returns person started to print up tags to salvage what I returned I said no need to waste what I bought I'll keep it for myself. Stores can't be too careful these days because you never know even for what looks like a completely sealed, brand new container.

As for eggs, around me I'm seeing $3.50-$5.00 for a dozen plain old, regular eggs depending on size and store. Nothing goes on sale except for the fancy stuff like free range, organic, Egglands Best brand and then it is only 25-75 cents off. If prices keep going up people are just going to quit buying eggs I think. I had been buying half dozen eggs at the one Walmart that carries them. But even they are up to $3.00 now which is too much for my budget. I feel like eggs, milk and super common produce items like bananas are some of the things that people use to gauge the general pricing for a grocery store. I said it myself at Safeway where milk is just at or over $4/gallon and eggs are almost $5/dozen that they are too damn expensive. But I find myself shopping there out of convenience since the store is about three minutes from my house.
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Re: Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by Romr123 »

we've noticed that there are no hard boiled eggs on the breakfast bar at a B&B where we frequent--this was a change in the last year.
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Re: Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by storewanderer »

WinCo in Reno currently has dozen large standard eggs at 3.81, limit 1, additional quantity at 8.08. Also they have signs up limit 2 packages of eggs period per customer.

Wal Mart is somewhere right around $5 per dozen but varies by store. Raleys, Save Mart are also right at $5 per dozen. Safeway in immediate Reno is at 3.59; outlying Safeways are at 4.99. Trader Joe's is at 2.89 if you can find them with eggs in stock (good luck). The stores with a heavy hispanic customer population are the worst priced on eggs; the Marketon Store is like $8 per dozen and Sak N Save (Raleys) is at 6.99. Still don't understand why the supposed "discount" Sak N Save charges $2 more per dozen than the standard Raleys for eggs (different supplier- not sure why- maybe just use the Raleys supplier?)...

Milk does seem to be rising. that quart I typically buy at Trader Joe's is 1.49 now (seems to go up .10 every couple months in 2022).
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Re: Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by SamSpade »

Current Pricing at Meijer in Michigan

A TV meteorologist posted this pricing in Lansing, Mich.
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Re: Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by storewanderer »

What is funny is in NorCal the eggs are 4.99 per dozen at the 3 major chains Safeway, Raleys, Save Mart. This pricing has been around for a while but not long ago all 3 chains were at 4.49. Give or take a cent.

It has gone up and down over the years. There were some big spikes when CA passed the SSFES or whatever it is egg law, then when everything had to be Cage Free it seemed like prices actually stabilized/went down a bit.

Safeway in NorCal was charging $4 per dozen or $6 per 18 pack 10-15 years ago (way higher than anyone else in the market at the time) so this pricing is nothing new in CA.

What is interesting to me is how it is spiked up so bad in other parts of the country, places with no regulations/cage free laws, etc., where eggs were routinely under $1 per dozen in recent years.
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Re: Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by bayford »

The lowest price I could find in northern Minnesota for a dozen eggs yesterday was $4.99 at Aldi for the standard large white. They posted a sign in corporate typeface apologizing for the high price and noting that the reason is due to market forces beyond Aldi's control. They were well-stocked with this type, and had no limits, but have been completely out of the varieties of brown eggs they sell for nearly a month now. Other grocers here, seemingly aside from Walmart, have also been running very low on most egg types except for large white.
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Re: Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by storewanderer »

I went to Natural Grocers over the weekend and they still have the 1.99 per dozen egg banner up but there were none of the still marked brown 1.99 per dozen eggs left. There was a second variety of 1.99 per dozen white eggs but they took a handwritten sign and taped over the 1.99 price and made it 2.99 on those white eggs.

Today I received an e-mail from Natural Grocers loyalty program stating that effective 1/9 they are increasing all egg prices by $1 per dozen and limit 2 per customer due to product shortages. I am not sure if this means that the white eggs that were 1.99 10 days ago then 2.99 this weekend are now 3.99 or quite what is going on there.

I was able to purchase eggs today at Trader Joes, 2.89 per dozen. Good honest business there.
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Re: Natural Grocers -1.99 dozen eggs

Post by BillyGr »

There was a local posting yesterday of a Wal Mart with Medium eggs at $2.18 per dozen.

Kind of looked like they somehow got way too many (it was an endcap type cooler with nothing but the eggs in it), so that might explain the low pricing.

On the other hand, there were other postings about Walmart having the 5-dozen box over $27 (which makes it around $5.40 per dozen, not much better than many places for the singles).

Not sure anyone knows what is happening at the moment!
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