Inside Scoop on BUTTER

Ah, butter. I remember, thee.

What I don't remember is the last time I bought a brick of the stuff. Seriously.

Unsalted butter is one of the most difficult commodities to get your hands on nowadays, even if you're willing to pay through the roof. I've seen upwards of $7 a brick or more.

It's dairy's cauliflower.

Salted butter prices aren't so bad, but just look at how full the shelves are, no one wants salted butter.

The company I work for buys from Costco, so we're getting it for $3.57 per brick which is actually really good. But what about those of us who don't buy 50 pound boxes at a time?

Well, rumour has it the price is supposed to finally break in April or May. Phew! I sure hope it's true.

At work we did call the CDC (Canadian Dairy Commission) and asked why the price is so high, and the answer is so convoluted and confusing, I can't even reiterate it. My understanding was something stupid like, we sell to Americans who buy at one price, and then we buy it back but the Americans jacked up the price. That was my understanding. It sounds so incredibly stupid and couldn't possibly be correct, like why are we buying our own dairy back? Or is it that we sell our dairy, but buy American dairy? I truly do not understand.

Whatever the reason, relief is apparently coming soon.

In the mean time, shop smart!

UPDATE FEBRUARY

I found out that the CDC only buys butter once a year for all the distribution centres they sell to. Apparently they didn't buy enough and that's why butter is so expensive, because all the butter in the grocery stores is not butter sold by the CDC. It's from other sources that don't offer the low price to distributors that CDC offers. So the crisis is going to be over soon because CDC will be ordering sometime in the next month or two (I think).

Inside Scoop on SUGAR

Have you been perusing the aisles of late and been struck with price hike of all types of sugar?

If you've experienced sticker shock with the sweet stuff, I do have a bit of an inside scoop for you.

From what I've been told, it is due to a huge heatwave in India.
Now, I find that a bit hard to swallow...I mean, how hot does it have to get in India for it to ruin all the sugar? I was skeptical when my supplier told me that, but that really is all the inside info I've been given.

This week when my sugar shipment came in, I noticed that all the bags were different, then immediately noticed it was a whole new brand. We are always given Redpath sugar, and now here I am getting all Rogers brand. My first thought was that our supplier switched brands to save money, maybe Rogers was cheaper.
Nope, turns out, the Redpath factory in Ontario got shut down because they found birds inside pooping on everything. That is what I was told.

When I got home, I went online to look it up, and sure enough I did find one article about it , but according to the article, it was a dead bird, not a whole mass of them having a party.

This was quite amazing to me, because the article states that the sugar affected was from January 27 to Feb 1. And yet, I didn't receive different sugar until February 19. And my inside guys gave me a bit of a different story, so I'm not sure which is true and I do hope that someone investigates this further to find out what the heck is happening with our sugar.

In the meantime, shop smart!

Welcome to my Grocery Shoppers Blog!

Hello and welcome to my shopping blog!

The main purpose and focus of this blog is to publish and track prices of grocery items because during these difficult financial times, people like me need to know where our dollar and pennies are going and how far.  I have noticed some sneaky tactics by stores, especially dairy, with shrinking the product, but not the price.

I am writing from the perspective of a newlywed echo boomer who relocated to Calgary, Alberta right before the economic crash here. Some say it's a recession, but for me and many others it feels like a crash---a depression, if you will.

Every penny counts.

I've been keeping my own notebook at home and track every item we buy in comparison to the same or similar item at different stores.

When using this blog for your own shopping comparisons, it is extremely important to note the weight of the item as well as flavour. Yes, flavour. There are products out there that are the same brand, same size, but different price depending on the flavour.

I don't just do this in my personal life, I also do this as part of my job in the food industry where I am in charge of tracking the prices of all ingredients and supplies we buy. I may include this from time to time to inform you out there who may not know some things from the inside.

Thank you for stopping by and let's all Shop Smart!