Have you seen our grocery series?
It actually started on Sunday’s front page, continues today and will wind up in Tuesday’s paper.
It’s a lot of ink on a simple topic, food, but we think it’s worth it. After all, providing food takes up a big percentage of our time and paychecks.
Why did we do the series?
It all started several years ago when The Herald’s Business section staff noticed that a lot of grocery chains were pushing loyalty cards. Were they worth it, we wondered? Did they save shoppers money?
We ran a series back in November of 2002, starting off by asking a nutritionist at the Washington State University Extension Service to help us select a shopping list that had a lot of the basic items: peanut butter, milk, margarine, meat etc.
We shopped at a number of local chain stores and tallied up the prices, finding that Fred Meyer was the least expensive.
Since then, a lot has happened.
Wal-Mart opened a superstore with grocery in the Tulalips’ Quil-Ceda commercial area. WinCo Foods, an Idaho chain with low prices, opened a competing outlet in Marysville last week. (Too late to make it into this series.) And smaller ethnic food stores or specialty shops have opened up all over the place.
We thought the changing grocery scene was a good reason to do another price survey.
So we updated the shopping lists and went back to the markets. Many of us, I believe, expected Wal-Mart to come up as the least expensive.
But Fred Meyer still came up on the top of the heap, in terms of having the best deals.
The series isn’t entirely about price, however.
This year we also looked at the rising popularity of organic foods. Are they worth the price? One thing you’ll learn from that piece, which is in today’s paper, is which items should you look for an organic choice and which items have typically low traces of pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
Tuesday’s topic is even more interesting to me.
That’s when we’ll explore the changing marketplace in Snohomish County.
During the past few years, there has been an explosion in ethnic markets as the county’s population gets more diverse.
From Mexican tiendas to markets featuring Asian specialties and spices, there are stores for nearly every taste.
One Tuesday, we look at a big selection of those markets, what are the best deals there and what not to expect. We’ll include a full-page map of where many of these stores are located and a short summary of what they feature.
Think of it as a culinary treasure map.
I recommend that you check out the series today if you haven’t already. And I hope the information is helpful.
Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459; mbenbow@heraldnet.com.
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