ShopSmart unveils summer guide to safe food handling, slashing food bills, and buying the best groceries

Posted Wednesday, July 25, 2007

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New shopping magazine from Consumer Reports includes a how-to guide on expiration dates and advice on how long is too long to keep foods

Yonkers, NY — When the weather gets hot, it’s time to fire up the barbecue for family and friends. But recent outbreaks of E.coli and salmonella may make shoppers a little queasy about digging in. To ease minds, the August/September issue of ShopSmart reports on safe food handling, how to slash grocery bills, and how to buy the best groceries. The August/September issue of ShopSmart also offers a how-to guide on expiration dates and advice on how long is too long to keep foods.

“This guide will help consumers purchase the best-tasting meat, produce at its peak and the freshest baked goods to serve this summer at family picnics and barbecues,” said Lisa Lee Freeman, Editor-in-Chief, ShopSmart. “Knowing how to avoid poor-quality food will help keep your family safe and save you money, too.”

 

ShopSmart offers these 11 tips to slashing grocery bills:

Shop at the cheap stores. A reader survey revealed that the best overall prices were found at Aldi, Costco, Market Basket, Slater Bros., Shoppers Food Warehouse, Trader Joe’s and Wal-Mart. The trade-off can be more limited selection or you may have to buy in bulk.

Be smart about circulars. Not all items in circulars are on sale. Manufacturers sometimes pay to have their products listed. The mere mention of a product in a circular can boost sales by up to 500 percent, even without a price cut.

Avoid store fake-outs. Beware of the end-of-aisle bins, island displays, recipe related item placement and “middle-shelf” items. They might appear to be sale items, but that is typically where higher-priced and impulse buys are placed. Bargain items are often on the low shelves.

Be color-blind. Color can be used to persuade you to choose one brand over another. Black, for example, is equated with luxury; yellow suggests an inexpensive product; and red screams discount. Ignore the colors and check out the unit prices instead so you can compare apples to apples.

Slice, dice and chill it yourself. If an item is packaged in a convenient way, the price can skyrocket. Pre-sliced cheese at the deli counter is often more expensive than the un-sliced version in the dairy aisle and pre-chilled soft drinks can cost more than twice as much as the room temperature ones only a few feet away.

Try store brands. A test of store-branded items against national brands found the store brands performed just as well or better in categories such as paper towels, plastic bags, canned peaches, french fries and yogurt.

Ask for a bargain. Many stores will match other stores’ sales prices or coupons as long as you have a circular to prove what the competitor is charging.

Use the store card. They can get you discounts on products in the store circular that are on sale without clipping coupons.

Watch the scanners. Scanners at the checkout make mistakes so be sure watch as items are passed through.
 

About ShopSmart magazine:
Launched in Fall 2006 by Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, ShopSmart draws upon Consumer Reports’ celebrated tradition of accepting no advertisements and providing unbiased product reviews. The magazine features product reviews, shopping tips on how to get the most out of products and “best of the best” lists. ShopSmart is ideal for busy shoppers who place a premium on time. ShopSmart has a newsstand price of $5.99 and is available nationwide at major retailers including Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, Borders, Kroger, Safeway and Publix.