The Supermarket Wars: Cheap Meat

Before we begin, I need to tell you something. I’m rooting for Price Chopper.

It’s not because I think they are the best of the supermarkets in the region. Right now they have a few good stores. I really like the one down in Slingerlands, and if the bagels from the Kosher Chopper out in Colonie went away, I would truly miss them.

However, the hard but obvious truth is that right now they are not the best supermarket in the region, regardless of what the Times Union Reader’s Choice Poll will say when it comes out in June. But there is no reason why they couldn’t be. I hope that in the face of tremendous competition our hometown market can rise up to the challenge and reinvent itself. But it will take a lot of work, focus and difficult decisions.

That said, I got a flyer in the mail recently that reflects their new deep savings. This is what was promised after rolling back their popular gas promotion (which I’ve only taken advantage of twice – I always found it too much of a hassle).

True to their word, the prices are low. Maybe a little too low.

There were four big coupons in the mailer: one for Snapple, one for their store brand of ice cream, one for grapes, and one for chicken. It was the chicken one that jumped out at me. Here’s how it reads:

Fresh Price Chopper Jumbo Chicken Leg Quarters
No water or salt added!
$.29 per pound with coupon and $15 purchase
Limit 1 package up to 7 lbs. please (through May 19).

To be fair, this week ShopRite is offering a similar discount, if not quite as deep. Their flyer tells of Tyson Chicken Leg Quarters on sale for $.38 per pound FINAL COST with Price Plus Card (through May 19).

But the point here isn’t the horse race between two markets on pricing for individual items. It’s the fact that anyone can sell chicken for such a paltry sum at all. And don’t think that Price Chopper is making it up on the boneless skinless breasts, because those are going for $1.99 per pound in the savings pack (until July 14).

Let’s stop and think about this for a minute. Twenty-nine cents a pound. Here’s what that buys.

– Eggs need to be fertilized, sorted and hatched.
– Chicks are sheltered, tended, and fed for weeks.
– Birds are slaughtered, processed* and inspected.
– Packages travel through the supply chain to the store.
– Trays of meat are put on the shelf and checked out by employees.
– Coupons are designed, printed and mailed

*Which requires no small amount of serious machinery and labor

All of this for $.29 a pound? I don’t think I could even get a Styrofoam tray for less than a dime. A large gumball will cost you a quarter. This is a pound or meat (and bone) from the tastiest part of the chicken. And I have no idea how far this poultry travels, but I do know that gas is around $4 a gallon, plus the truckers have to be paid for their time and labor too.

Even if you did all the processing yourself, had no transportation or marketing costs, and did not take into consider your own labor, this would be significantly less expensive than it would be to raise your own chickens. So how do they do it?

The same way they can make a pencil for a dime. Industrialization.

But this chicken is less expensive than sweet potatoes, onions, and pretty much any vegetable ever. Which is remarkable because root vegetables only need to be fed water and sunlight, and you know, don’t need to be slaughtered, plucked, eviscerated, cut, packaged, and shipped cold.

The problem is that when we industrialize animal husbandry. Even if you put aside the fact that sentient beings are subjected to inhumane conditions, one still needs to recognize the short cuts that are taken to get the birds to bulk up as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Then there is the human cost from the drive to reduce labor expenses, and environmental degradation that results from industrialized agriculture and bulk processing.

Sometimes it takes a coupon for really cheap chicken to be reminded of such things.

Now I’m not suggesting that Price Chopper try to be more like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. But I still think there is a way for our local supermarket chain to do right by the community, lower prices, and stay true to their core identity. I wish the idea were mine, but I cannot take credit for it.

This came from K W J Carney last night over Twitter:

Hey @PriceChopper, instead of mailing my whole neighborhood coupons for cheaper Diet Snapple, how about lowering the price of vegetables?

Yeah. What he said. Because this is the kind of thinking that can make a difference. This is how a grocery store can become more than just a broker of commodities. It’s hard to get good produce in upstate New York most of the year. But grocery stores are in a unique position to encourage better diets, get people cooking from scratch, and building stronger communities.

Cheaper dreck is not the answer. Bringing people the good stuff for less money, that’s golden.