At the recommendation of a friend who said she bought the best frozen eggplant with goat cheese sauce, I found my way to Grocery Outlet, tucked in the back of 5667 E. Speedway Blvd, the shopping center that also has Big 5 and Son’s Bakery.

Grocery Outlet, a bargain market, has the lowest of low prices on almost all items except produce and milk. A gallon of milk was $3.29 while Fry’s recently had milk for $1.39 gallon. Why the discrepancy?

According to the owner, Dennis Marquard, the price of milk is federally regulated and since Fry’s buys in such bulk they get a price break and can afford to offer milk as a lost liter in order to get people into the store.

Grocery Outlet has been around since 1946 with 133 stores in six Western states.  The independently operated Tucson store has been around since 1998.

Here you won’t find any fresh meat or a large selection of produce but you will find a changing array of frozen food products, canned goods, candy and chips, dry mix, cereal at far lower prices than practically anywhere on the planet, ice cream, sodas, salad dressing, cleaning supplies, and pet food. The other side of the store has many of the items you would find in a 99cent store. There’s even a smattering of malt beverages and wine. Norma Jean, a 2006 young merlot was $7.99; elsewhere $11.99. One stop shopping on a budget.

I bought a carton of four 8-oz bottles of Mike’s Lemonade “Lemon Drop” for $1.99; 200 coffee basket filters for $1.59; a 16-oz. package of coleslaw mix for $.99; guacamole chips for $1.99; and a banana for $.20. My total was $7.05 and I saved $10.79.

Some good deals included: chocolate pecan Luna bars-58 cents, Stonyfield yogurt 2 for $1 (elsewhere 99 cents each), 19-oz. can of Progressive noodle soup-$1.59.

While perusing the frozen food aisle I picked up two items that were marked as “use by” March 09.  It’s June 09. What the heck? Marquard said that according to most manufacturers, frozen foods may be kept six months longer than their expiration dates as long as they are kept frozen and don’t have freezer burn. However, there are exceptions as his Tropicana orange juice has to be sold by the expiration day so says the manufacturer of Tropicana orange juice.

The expiration dates of products in Grocery Outlet are suggested by the manufacturer and monitored by the health department and corporate Grocery Outlet. The majority of products are brand names. Grocery Outlet does not sell seconds or inferior foods but rather sells overstocked items from major chain grocery stores, product packaging changes, and private labels.

Unlike major grocery stores that sell a small box of Cheerios for $2.50, secondary markets like Grocery Outlet are forbidden by contract to advertise $1.19 for the same box. Nor can Grocery Outlet except manufacturer coupons.

Marquard said that most products do not expire (except milk and milk products) when their expiration date says they do. Canned goods last forever unless the can get wet, rusty, or creased. An exception is canned tomato-based products; because of tomato acidity, they should be discarded a year after the expiration date.

As you walk around the store and look at the products which are labeled and easy to read, the price will be clearly marked and in the lower corner will be what they cost elsewhere.

Call for hours: 546-6645

I forgot to look for the frozen eggplant with goat cheese sauce.

Please send your food markets and farmers markets news, feedback, suggestions, and questions to eat.tucson@yahoo.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 8:59 am and is filed under Grocery Stores. Tags for this post: budget food store, grocery outlet, Tucson grocery store. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.