MARTIN SLOANE | Supermarket Shopper Shopping trip found bargains north of the border

Visiting an out-of-town supermarket can be interesting, especially if it's in another country. Recently, I went shopping in a small town in Canada, hundreds of miles north of Vancouver.
Prince Rupert is the most northern town on the west coast of Canada's British Columbia territory. Fishing, forestry, transportation and tourism are the basis of its economy. This town of 17,000 residents was a stopping-off point on my recent trip to Alaska.
I asked the local bus driver which supermarket has the best prices. He let me off at Extra Foods in Prince Rupert's only shopping center.
Extra Foods is a medium-size supermarket, with about seven checkouts. No fancy decorations or graphics were on the walls. However, the aisles were wide and the shelves were well stocked.
No name
I noticed a big sign, "No Name is Always Your Best Value." "No Name" turned out to be thousands of items packed in yellow boxes, cans and bottles, with no brand name. This is the same "No Name" generic groceries I found in Loblaw's in Toronto.
There were also many President's Choice items, Loblaw's premium house brand. (As it turns out, the Extra Foods franchise is owned by the same company that owns Loblaw's.) There were also unfamiliar brand names: Fleetwood, Freybe, Byblos, Casa Mendosa, SeaQuest, and Country Harvest, to name just a few. That's not to say I couldn't find Del Monte, Betty Crocker, Hellmann's, Kraft, General Mills, Kellogg's and Quaker on the shelves.
Interestingly, many grocery products were in larger sizes than we usually see in U.S. supermarkets. For example, cereals come in 1,000-gram Jumbo Packs. Contents or weights use the metric system and are measured in grams or liters. The jumbo 1,000-gram cereal is equivalent to 35.27 ounces -- about 10 to 15 ounces more than the large U.S. cereal boxes have. The Cheerios Jumbo-Pack was priced at $9.19 Canadian dollars, which works out to about $6.80 in U.S. dollars.
In the states, 16-ounce salad dressings are usually the large size. At Extra Foods, I found the large size dressings in 950 milliliter bottles, about 32.18 ounces.
The produce department looked familiar with many of the popular fruits and vegetables found in a U.S. supermarket. On sale, broccoli was 98 cents a bunch. Five-pound bags of local apples were $3.98.
Much of the fresh fruit comes from California: five-pound bags of medium-size grapefruit, $2.48; five pound half-flats of strawberries, $6.88. These are prices in Canadian dollars, so, reduce them by about one-third to find the cost in U.S. dollars.
I also compared meat prices with those back home. In U.S. dollars, fresh chicken thighs were on sale for 98 cents a pound; lean ground beef was $1.17; loin pork chops were $3.49. Some of the north-of-the-border cuts had unfamiliar names such as "Canadian blade simmering steaks" priced at $1.70 a pound.
Throughout the store I noticed sale prices on almost every shelf. Many of these savings are offered in Extra Foods' weekly 28-page advertising booklet. On the front cover was an offer for a 1 kilogram (35.27 ounces) can of President's Choice gourmet ground coffee, regularly $7.49 Canadian, free with a $150 purchase.
Back in the U.S.A.
As I walked into Prince Rupert's Safeway supermarket, I felt like I was back in the United States. It was colorfully decorated and brightly lighted. Everywhere I looked I saw sale price promotions for Safeway Club card members and Air Miles Rewards. Safeway's color circular carried a banner, "SAVE over $145 with Buy One, Get One Free, Specials in this Ad!" Each BOGO clearly required club membership.
In the produce section, all of the specials required the club card: In Canadian Dollars, 2-pound strawberries, $4.99; leaf lettuce, $1.29; and broccoli crowns, $1.89.
Extra Foods is grocery shopping, plain and simple. Safeway is shopping with all the bells and whistles of modern marketing. I found opportunities for smart shoppers in both. Which do you prefer? I value your opinion and publish the most interesting letters. Write to me, Martin Sloane, The Supermarket Shopper, in care of The Vindicator.
United Feature Syndicate