Grocery shopping did not go well. As a kosher consumer, Rabbi of my shul, the Orthodox one, two Rabbis ago, now some 25 years ago, cashed in some friendship favors with the head of a local supermarket chain. One store in the Jewish population center would create a kosher meat department, deli, and bakery. As a result, those of us who once schlepped 45 minutes to independent Kosher butchers in our magnet city's Orthodox neighborhood, filling our freezers to capacity every couple of months, could now buy what we needed mostly for supper in a much more convenient way. Supermarket business is notoriously competitive and at low profit margins. Having all the people with kosher homes shopping there to the exclusion of other grocers, made the friendship pay off for everyone. Well, not exactly everyone. As local Kosher oversight committees around America made similar arrangements for their observant Jews, the independent kosher butchers closed their shops in all but the places of highest Orthodox presence.
I also had my transition, as did my Jewish community. We have become older. Parents of late teens and college kids at the start of the project became empty nesters. Rabbinical transitions and animosities among key players took its toll. Kashrut attracts older people. As actuarial realities and sunbelt migration play out, there are fewer kosher consumers. But those who remain, continue our personal loyalties to that particular store, despite a selection of beef and poultry far less diverse than it once was. The misdeeds of Rubashkin's Agriprocessors ended economical kosher beef. Its substitute suppliers keep us afloat with ground beef, cubes, and minute steaks. I've not seen liver in years and briskets only near the Festivals when people make big dinners for extended families. The deli has become a pawn as key people who truly have not been treated well by dominant local Jews, protect their turf. Yet our loyalty to that store in that location remains firm. I seldom make a purchase from the deli, deterred by expense. Same with the bakery, which rarely offers anything baked in store for what I am willing to spend. Indeed, the store's hechsher has the logo of the departed Rabbi, not the current mara d'atra of my synagogue.
What I seek out as specialty kosher for my basket, though, is a pittance of what I put in my cart each week. The economics of food processing has made available every imaginable mass-produced edible with a factory-applied kosher insignia from one of several international supervision agencies. My full cart has kosher, but not locally supervised. The same packaged stuff available anyplace. But I shop at the place where I can also purchase kosher raw beef and chicken, though I rarely prepare either other than for Shabbos and Festivals. Even my kosher Thanksgiving turkey I buy someplace else. My Rabbi and his supermarket CEO chum called it right. Kosher brings loyalty. So do better prices, which this store seems to have. And top tier employees, where they seem to struggle.
Every Wednesday, the postman delivers a packet of supermarket advertising. It contains circulars from about a half dozen competing markets, each of colored newsprint, about eight pages long. I extract the one from my grocery, recycle the others. I take it to the desk in My Space, extract a page from one of those 8.5 x 3.5 pads that I harvest from periodic non-profits solicitation envelopes, take out a pen, most commonly a red Flair pen, and begin my review of the coming week's supermarket promotions. The page from the pad has a logo with lines for writing on the front, blank white on the right. On the front, I note what I definitely will purchase. Either it's a deal too good to pass up, or I need it. Typically that fills a little more than half the sheet. On the blank reverse, I write those items that I will consider as I shop. That list fills an entire column, then a third or so of the next column. After I am done, usually two sessions spread over a half hour to get through all eight pages, I write on the front what must get because I am running low, irrespective of its inclusion in the weekly sale circular. The circular and shopping list then get clipped together with a home on the far reaches of my desk until ready to drive to the supermarket.
Short essential list:
- K-Cups; House Brand #36
- Stovetop Espresso Maker
- #2 Pencils which I buy each year
- Papermate stick pens, which did not write last year
- Spiral Notebook purchased each year
- Chex Mix
- Tastykakes
Essential has a context. I have enough stationery. My doctor thinks I snack too much. Have enough coffee pods to last a while. But my stovetop espresso maker failed some time ago from a deteriorating gasket that I cannot easily replace. Essential becomes things I will eventually use which can be obtained at a price low enough that I will not anticipate a similar bargain in the near future.
I entered the store expecting to purchase little more than this, as I did not want to spend a significantly greater amount of time there to explore the much larger number of items on the back side of the sheet. This store puts its advertised circular bargains right near the front entrance. I put two boxes of Tastykakes in my basket. Usually they have sale K-cups there, but not this week. I wheeled my cart to the coffee aisle, taking a box of 36 for my cart. School supplies just entering the Back to School season, though school will not reopen for another six weeks. I found a minimal pile of spiral binders, wide rule 70 sheets each, my usual Back to School annual purchase. I put one yellow and one red cover in my basket. No advertised pencils or stick pens. A sign pointed to a supply at aisle's end. None there either. Looked at cereals and snacks without finding Chex Mix. Wouldn't even know where to find the espresso maker, the one item that would add to my enjoyment.
Near the front door they keep a customer service area. In this computerized era, the clerk can type in a number and find it. I waited my turn, a short wait. The young man greeted me, though he looked like his coffee break might have gotten overdue. I asked him to get me a circular, then I circled from the ad what I could not find. No pencils or pens in stock. Chex Mix with the snack aisle, where it was not when I went back to look for it. He did not even have the espresso maker listed in his store's computerized inventory but he told me which aisle it would be in if and when the store stocks it. Rainchecks for pens and pencils. No Chex Mix to be had. And the Espresso Maker exists only on newsprint received by a few million households in my metro area, not in the store or even in the inventory of what the computer can affirm as present on site. Rain checks have to be generated by their computer as it includes a UPC code to scan for the discount. Phantom items like my desired stovetop device have no way in modern grocery retailing of providing me the discount, even if the item appears on their shelves past the expiration date of the weekly circular.
So basically, the best and brightest of the grocery world lured me into their store expecting bargains that they were not able to fulfill. In my younger years, the 1970s or so, an age of emerging consumerism where people read Consumer Reports and watched interviews of Ralph Nader on talk shows, we called this Bait & Switch. Advertise an item at a low price, not have it, consumer gets similar item at full price or does other shopping in store. It was at the time part of strategy to squeeze a few dollars from each shopper. Most merchants offered rain checks, handwritten vouchers to purchase the advertised item at the sale price later, but it required the consumer to wait her turn at the customer service desk.
Unavailability of advertised items still occurs, though no longer part of profit enhancing strategy. Replacing it seems more the growth of businesses to massive proportions with centralization of shared tasks, dependence on technology which never runs glitch free, multiple satellite outlets, serving millions of consumers, all in a competitive but oligarchical environment with a few similar enterprises trying to make their branch store the one I find most attractive. My grocer has hundreds of stores, but rather than being centrally owned, they are regionally owned and franchised by a central distributor. Somebody has to decide what will go on sale in what region each week, tell that to the staff that advertises those decisions who prints and mails the weekly circulars. Then somebody else has to secure a supply of those thousands of different products, obtain them from suppliers in an era where expected distribution does not always happen, bring the products to the individual sites, and record it for the clerks who interface with the customers to call up each individual item by current supply and location in that store. Plenty of steps to break down, and as I learned, they do break down. There was no Chex Mix even though the computer said there was.
Sometimes the merchants can anticipate iffy supply. The circular will say "where available, no rainchecks." That way they can advertise Kosher Chicken everywhere but only stock the stores which have enough Jewish customers to buy enough of it. Back to school, Valentine's Day, and Christmas have seasonal items which will run out and not get restocked as the targeted events pass. But the items I wanted, especially the espresso maker, did not have that restriction. Still, I could not be assured that my store will ever have it or that I can receive the advertised discount if it ever appears on their shelves.
Retailing in America, at least stores, have earned the shopper's skepticism. They invite you to get something at a good price that you cannot have, after making an effort to drive there, bring your own shopping bag, and looked on the store's shelves for more than you came for. Electronic shopping doesn't have that albatross. Circulars from Amazon do not arrive. Even unsolicited pop-ups are rare. People sign on when they know what they want to purchase, though the browsing options are ample and easy to use once a category gets selected. Shoppers learn of discounts once ready to select. A blue shirt may have a different price than a lemon yellow shirt. I looked up the espresso maker, known in e-tailing as a MokaPot. No shortages. But not at the price my grocer advertised, either. I guess, like some of our political candidates, they dedicate themselves to they/them but rarely to you.
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