Stores not carrying popular items

[Pete from Boston]

Supermarket availability and placement seems to be a game of competition from suppliers.  My understanding is that the best spots go to those who cut the best deals.  This is certainly true at other retailers.  If you shop regularly at Home Depot, for example, you'll see major brands come and go, grow and shrink.  Milwaukee practically has its own tool department there now, while the once-ubiquitous Irwin has become scarce.

Simple answer is, money talks.

[hm insulators]

It seems that the supermarkets don't want to be supermarkets anymore. They want to be banks, florists, Subway branches, even doctors' offices. (I cry foul at that one: do we really need any more incentive for Mommy to bring sick little Susie and Johnny to the store to cough and sneeze all over the merchandise? ) They carry less and less food items and the like. I'm half-convinced that one of these days, I'm going to go to Safeway, for example, and there will be no food. I'll see a lumberyard where the produce used to be, telescopes where the dairy used to be, expensive jewelry where the bread used to be, model train supplies where the canned goods once were, and I'll ask, "Where's the food?" to which the employee will reply, "Oh, we don't carry food anymore; it's the great new trend in supermarkets. I don't know where you can get food; you'll probably have to go to a restaurant." I'll say, "But I want to cook my own meals!" to which the employee will use that nasal tone of voice that lets you know they don't care about how unhappy you are (are they actually trained to use that nasal tone?) to reply, "I'm sorry sir, we just don't have food. You just have to go out to eat; I don't know of any stores that actually carry food."

An example of what this thread addresses: In an entire metropolitan area of over 4 million people, not one damn store carries French's yellow mustard in the small 9-ounce glass jar! Not one! I hate the squeeze bottles that are ubiquitous to the complete elimination of the small jar; the squeeze bottles are messy and inconvenient, plus they alter the taste of the mustard. One chain in Phoenix carries the great big 24-ounce glass jar of French's mustard, but I live alone and don't need such a huge jar! To get what I want, I had to have a friend in L.A. buy and ship over the mustard in the size that I want, and now when I go to California in the future, one item on my agenda will be to go to the store to buy the mustard in the small jar that I want. I actually have to drive 400 miles to buy a stupid jar of mustard!

[hbelkins]

Diet Pepsi is a very poor substitute for Diet Coke. If I am eating at an establishment that has Pepsi products, I get Diet Mountain Dew if it's available because Diet Pepsi is swill. Around here, Dr Pepper is a Pepsi-distributed product so some places have Diet Dr Pepper, and I'll get that.

I've noticed that Speedway and Sheetz stores have both Coke and Pepsi products available at the fountain.

[vdeane]

even doctors' offices

I guess Market Bistro (a Price Chopper re-branded to fight Wegmans) isn't he only grocery store with a doctor on the staff then...

An example of what this thread addresses: In an entire metropolitan area of over 4 million people, not one damn store carries French's yellow mustard in the small 9-ounce glass jar! Not one! I hate the squeeze bottles that are ubiquitous to the complete elimination of the small jar; the squeeze bottles are messy and inconvenient, plus they alter the taste of the mustard. One chain in Phoenix carries the great big 24-ounce glass jar of French's mustard, but I live alone and don't need such a huge jar! To get what I want, I had to have a friend in L.A. buy and ship over the mustard in the size that I want, and now when I go to California in the future, one item on my agenda will be to go to the store to buy the mustard in the small jar that I want. I actually have to drive 400 miles to buy a stupid jar of mustard!

I have that problem with ketchup.  I like Heinz (actually, my favorite is the Wegmans brand organic ketchup, but that isn't sold in Albany), but those are only available in either the squeeze bottles that I hate (seriously, you get nothing or a large blob; how are you supposed to evenly spread it on a hamburger or hot dog that way?) or the jumbo sized ones that are hard to handle.  I actually end up buying Hunts because that's the only brand I can get in a decent size in the traditional shape (aside from Price Chopper brand, which I'm not sure if I can trust or not).

[bandit957]

Yesterday I noticed my local Kroger has 8 shelves for Diet Coke's many permutations, and only 4 shelves for regular Coke.

Most people who saw this would get mad and break things.

[Scott5114]

I would imagine the reason why most places aren't selling glass jars of mustard or ketchup is because they have problems breaking in transit, or are too expensive. Plastic bottles don't have those problems, and it doesn't make enough of a difference to most people as to cause a drop in sales (or the drop in sales is more than made up for by the money recovered from not having to deal with cleaning up ruptured mustard).

Most people who saw this would get mad and break things.

No, they wouldn't.

[bandit957]

Most people who saw this would get mad and break things.

No, they wouldn't.

I wouldn't.

But 99% of people would.

[1995hoo]

Are there any chains that have both brands available? I feel like I visited a place recently where that was the case but I can't remember what it was.

Generally they won't, because a restaurant has to sign a contract with one or the other, which usually involves leasing a fountain, and if Coke finds you dispensing Pepsi out of their fountain pretty soon you won't have either.

....

Then you had the bizarre situation when I was in college where the scoreboard in Scott Stadium had a Pepsi ad in one corner, yet all the concession stands sold Coke products.

[DaBigE]

The one that bugs me is the random availability of Vanilla Coke in 20 oz bottles. The 12-pack of cans seem to be everywhere, but those don't help on the road. One Walmart (luckily the one in my town) carries it in the fridges by the checkouts, but no other Walmart in the area. A few Walgreens stock it, but it's almost just as rare. Never seen it at a Target, a gas station, or some of the smaller regional department or grocery stores.

[Pete from Boston]

I would imagine the reason why most places aren't selling glass jars of mustard or ketchup is because they have problems breaking in transit, or are too expensive. Plastic bottles don't have those problems, and it doesn't make enough of a difference to most people as to cause a drop in sales (or the drop in sales is more than made up for by the money recovered from not having to deal with cleaning up ruptured mustard).

I'll bet an even bigger consideration is weight.  Multiply the weight difference between glass and plastic millions of times and you have a lot of fuel savings and thus lower shipping costs.

[kkt]

It seems that the supermarkets don't want to be supermarkets anymore. They want to be banks, florists, Subway branches, even doctors' offices.

Yes, the supermarkets are trying to be drugstores, and the drugstores are trying to be supermarkets.  They're both trying to be liquor stores, and all of them are doing a crappy job trying to be something they're not.

[freebrickproductions]

None of the stores I've been to lately haven't had the "Cheese Nips" brand of cheese crackers (like Cheez-its), but I know that they are still made as a fellow classmate of mine brought some to school one day recently.

[vdeane]

I would imagine the reason why most places aren't selling glass jars of mustard or ketchup is because they have problems breaking in transit, or are too expensive. Plastic bottles don't have those problems, and it doesn't make enough of a difference to most people as to cause a drop in sales (or the drop in sales is more than made up for by the money recovered from not having to deal with cleaning up ruptured mustard).

Most people who saw this would get mad and break things.

No, they wouldn't.

I was actually referring to the old plastic ones that were popular in the 90s.  The glass ones are practically unusable - the ketchup never moves.



For the most part, the only ones you can buy around here are either jumbo sized or the upside down crapola.

[Pete from Boston]

So what the hell is up with this nonsense?



(Neither is mislabeled–this is how they package them.)

[dfwmapper]

I was actually referring to the old plastic ones that were popular in the 90s.  The glass ones are practically unusable - the ketchup never moves.

Hit the bottle on the "57" on the shoulder a few times. And stab anyone who sticks their knife in the bottle to get it moving. Gross.

[1995hoo]

This was just posted on another forum I visit and it immediately made me think of this thread. I have not tried to find out whether it's real.

[PHLBOS]

I was actually referring to the old plastic ones that were popular in the 90s.  The glass ones are practically unusable - the ketchup never moves.

Hit the bottle on the "57" on the shoulder a few times. And stab anyone who sticks their knife in the bottle to get it moving. Gross.

Set the WABAC Machine to 1979 & cue in Carly Simon music.   

[jeffandnicole]

This was just posted on another forum I visit and it immediately made me think of this thread. I have not tried to find out whether it's real.

Apparently, it is.  And a pretty easy url to remember too...

www.sriracha2go.com

[1995hoo]

Yeah, I saw the URL but felt no motivation to type it in because I have no use for that product. I have a (regular-size) bottle of Sriracha at home in the kitchen, but I feel no need to carry some with me everywhere I go!

[renegade]

This was just posted on another forum I visit and it immediately made me think of this thread. I have not tried to find out whether it's real.

Apparently, it is.  And a pretty easy url to remember too...

www.sriracha2go.com

Hmm ... looks similar to the bottle that sunscreen comes in ... 

I could see some id10t not paying attention and mistaking this for the sunscreen and burning the piss out of themselves.  And I could see myself laughing at said person for being stupid enough to do so.

Having said that, mee wantee.

[bugo]

How about when radio stations don't paly (sic) a popular song that you like, even though it fits their format.

You buy a digital music player (most phones have them now) and put the song you like on it. Sometimes I'll put my iPod or my phone on shuffle play and it randomly plays songs. It's like listening to the radio without any awful music.

[bugo]

The leading pop station in my area never added a moderately popular Men At Work song. I bet some people never listened to that station again. They probably haven't listened to it in over 30 years. They probably burned all the survey sheets and souvenir frisbee they collected from that station.

"Overkill"?

[bugo]

As for why Pepsi is so common, I think Pepsi contracts are cheaper. The casino chain I work for gives it out for free in all of their establishments, and I can't imagine them picking the more expensive of the two. That also explains why you often see Pepsi in smaller, local establishments, including just about every Chinese restaurant I've ever been to.

The Osage casinos are Pepsi-only. I seem to remember the Station Casino in KCMO was Pepsi only.

[bugo]

Diet Pepsi is a very poor substitute for Diet Coke. If I am eating at an establishment that has Pepsi products, I get Diet Mountain Dew if it's available because Diet Pepsi is swill. Around here, Dr Pepper is a Pepsi-distributed product so some places have Diet Dr Pepper, and I'll get that.

I've noticed that Speedway and Sheetz stores have both Coke and Pepsi products available at the fountain.

Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi are poor substitutes for regular Coke and Pepsi. I'd rather drink Cuyahoga River flambé than any drink or food containing artificial sweeteners. They're not only bad for you and dangerous, but they taste like Doberman shit. I was filling up the saccharin in the sugar/creamer machine at work the other day and got some of the saccharin in my mouth. It tasted like absolute poo and I could still taste it several hours later. Right after I tasted the saccharine saccharin I developed a bad headache. The same thing happened the next day and I got the same type of headache. Sucralose is the worst. At my last job, the sugar machines had a spot for Splenda, which easily becomes airborne. I got that shit in my mouth, up my nose and all over my clothes. I learned to start tucking my shirt over my nose in the same way that everybody does when they smell shit. It looks like I'm going to have to start doing that with the saccharin. And I'm not even going to touch aspartame because it's a low lying target. I'm starting to wonder if the banned cyclamates were safer than sucralose, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, neotame, and saccharin (which is probably the safest artificial sweetener on the market (which isn't saying much)). Is anyone here old enough or Canadian enough to remember what cyclamates tasted like? How bad was the aftertaste? They were banned years before I was born so I have never gotten the chance to taste it.

[bandit957]

The leading pop station in my area never added a moderately popular Men At Work song. I bet some people never listened to that station again. They probably haven't listened to it in over 30 years. They probably burned all the survey sheets and souvenir frisbee they collected from that station.

"Overkill"?

"Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive".