(Host) According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food prices are expected to rise four to five percent this year.
That’s on top of skyrocketing heating fuel and gas prices.
The situation has pushed up food shelf use in Vermont and across the country. It’s also made discount grocery stores a lot busier.
VPR’s Nina Keck has more.
(sound of grocery)
(Keck) At Discount Food of Rutland, Patti Plew of Mount Holly makes her way past a wide variety of odds and ends. Items on the shelves change from week to week, depending on what suppliers bring. Plew says you won’t find everything that a major supermarket carries, but what you do find is typically a lot cheaper.
(Plew) "This is a great deal. I don’t know if you’ve seen what I’ve got, but I just bought a can of sweetened condensed milk for 25 cents. It’s over $3 in the store."
(Keck) Discount stores can charge less because most of the items they sell are products other stores have returned or bought too much of. The canned goods may be dented, the boxes slightly torn. Bottles and jars of condiments may be discontinued or near their expiration dates.
(Plew) "I just bought 10 pounds of rice for $1.25. We shop at a discount food store once a week. We make that our first stop and then we go to the grocery store and whatever we can’t find here we get there."
(Keck) "How much would you say it helps on your overall grocery bills?”
(Plew) "Oh, it probably cuts our grocery bill by 50 percent.”
(Keck) Shopper Jim Hodgdon of Rutland steers his cart through the checkout line.
(Hodgdon) "I prefer this store over Price Chopper or Wal-Mart – because the prices are better. It’s easier to shop, it’s cheaper and I save a buck. `Cuz I’ve got two kids – I’m a single dad – I’ve got to save money."
(Keck) That mentality has generated a steady increase in business at discount groceries across Vermont. In the Burlington area, Mister G’s Liquidation Center in Winooski attracts about 250 shoppers a day during the week and around 450 a day on weekends. Manager Jason Plank says those numbers are climbing.
(Plank) "Yeah, almost every week that’s up. Since the first of the year I’ve actually been tracking it. That’s up anywhere from 15 to 25 percent to 30 percent a week."
(Keck) He says a lot of his new clientele are middle and upper income shoppers. Mike Solimano, who owns Vermont Discount Foods in Rutland says he, too, is noticing a shift in clientele and an increase in business.
(Solimano) "Since January it’s really been picking up and I think every week we’ve been growing about 5 to 10 percent over the prior year’s numbers. Last week was probably the best week we’ve had in a while."
(Keck) Solimano says they’d attract even more shoppers if they were in a more prominent location. But he says that’s the nature of the discount business.
(Solimano) "We don’t really make a lot on everything we sell. We usually can’t afford the high-end rent that most of the other stores do, so we tend to be in kind of off-the-beaten-path kind of locations. So, the biggest challenge is people don’t tend to know about us. We’re usually in the back of some building. And our location’s in the Howe Center in Rutland, which is hidden. And unless you’ve been here — many people who have lived in Rutland forever and they don’t even know we’re here."
(Keck) Word of mouth appears to be helping. Still, most discount grocers say offering low prices at a time when retail rates are soaring is the best enticement they can make.
For VPR News, I’m Nina Keck in Rutland.