Cheap(er) grocery shopping? (Denver, Boulder: coupons, transfer, to buy)

[unbeliever]

Sorry for posting this in the general Colorado forum, but I live halfway between Denver and Boulder, and I'm never sure where to post.

I've lived in a lot of expensive places, but we've always been able to save money by shopping ethnic markets. In San Francisco, we had the Chinese stores on Clement Street and a huge variety of Filipino, South and Central American markets, etc. In the DC area, we had some lower priced grocery stores (Shoppers) and again, a ton of ethnic stores with lower prices. However, I haven't been able to find any affordable places to shop here. We shop at King Soopers for some things, Costco, Walmart, Target, Safeway, etc. We buy a few items at Whole Foods and Sprouts. Sunflower was much cheaper, but they've been swallowed up by Sprouts of course. We hit H Mart once a month, but their prices are really high compared to the one we frequented in VA.

Any suggestions? I'm open to travel throughout the metro area if it's worth it.

Thanks!

jb

[MadeItToColorado]

A bit unrelated, but curious where around DC you lived. I now live in Broomfield, but grew up in Woodbridge, VA.

We shop at all the same places you listed, finding combinations of coupons for the myriad of stores around. Haven't found an across the board lower priced alternative here.

[davebarnes]

Colorado grocery choices are unlike almost anywhere in the country.

King Soopers (Kroger) dominates with about a 38% market share. (I looked for data, but could not find any recent.)
Safeway is next with about 20%.
Walmart with 20%.
Albertsons.
Whole Foods.
Target.
Costco.
Sprouts.
Vitamin Cottage.

So, 3 chains own almost 80% of the market. They are not going to compete on price.
The ethnic stores are usually not cheaper. (One of them, Avanza had lower marked prices on everything and then just added 10% at checkout. They got their hands slapped for that.)
Super Value (Cub Foods) came into greater Denver about 8 years ago and got run out of town with their tail between their legs.
Rancho Liborio went into bankruptcy. http://www.denverpost.com/popular/ci...ighbors_denver
SmartCo cratered after just a few months http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_16831706
You may find this interesting http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15047968

[jazzlover]

One of the dirty little secrets of the Rocky Mountain West is that food tends to be high-priced, especially in the rural areas. All of the locally-owned grocery chains have been bought out by the "biggies." One of the last local chains was City Market, owned and run by the Prinster family. Their corporate headquarters and major distribution center was in Grand Junction. They bought a lot of locally produced products which they distributed to their stores. Well, they got bought out by Dillon Food Stores (which also owned formerly Colorado-owned King Soopers), which was, in turn taken over by Kroger. Along the way, the distribution center and corporate headquarters in Grand Junction was closed and the City Market employees there either transferred to Denver or elsewhere--or were laid off.

In rural Colorado, where there actually is still quite a lot of agriculture, the local grocery stores get nearly all of their food from large corporate food distribution centers in Denver or elsewhere. Even the independent markets are largely stocked out of Denver or Salt Lake City. So, as a result, rural Coloradans get to pay the additional trucking cost for food coming to their stores while, if they are farmers or ranchers, often have to pay to have their product freighted out to the same distribution centers. As a long-time rural Colorado businessperson noted about this place, "We have to buy everything we need at retail, sell everything we produce at wholesale, and pay the freight on it both ways."

[unbeliever]

Originally Posted by MadeItToColorado

A bit unrelated, but curious where around DC you lived. I now live in Broomfield, but grew up in Woodbridge, VA.

We shop at all the same places you listed, finding combinations of coupons for the myriad of stores around. Haven't found an across the board lower priced alternative here.

We live in Broomfield too, and we moved here from Fairfax. I never thought that I'd miss Wegman's above everything, but I dream about a store like that here. I spent a fair amount of time shopping in Woodbridge. Do you know Astoria Pizza? One of my favorites.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by unbeliever

We live in Broomfield too, and we moved here from Fairfax. I never thought that I'd miss Wegman's above everything, but I dream about a store like that here. I spent a fair amount of time shopping in Woodbridge. Do you know Astoria Pizza? One of my favorites.

I lived in Falls Church and then Dumfries...and I so miss Wegmans...and so many ethnic stores (of which there are very few in COS).

[mic111]

Try Vitamin Cottage. If you buy the healthy groceries at regular stores Vitamin Cottage carries them much cheaper.

[MadeItToColorado]

Haven't been to Astoria Pizza...although last time I lived in the area was 2003ish.

Phetaroi-

Where in Dumfries? I grew up in Montclair.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by MadeItToColorado

Haven't been to Astoria Pizza...although last time I lived in the area was 2003ish.

Phetaroi-

Where in Dumfries? I grew up in Montclair.

Palton Drive, which is at the corner of I-95 and 234.

[lurtsman]

I shop mostly at Sam's club. I found food to be slightly cheaper here than it was in Iowa when comparing Sam's vs Sam's. We also head down to Sprouts about once a week because they have some excellent deals on produce, and we enjoy the store. I hate shopping at Walmart (which ironically is the main company behind Sam's). We tried shopping at Costco, but found it was very similar to Sam's except there were more very old people who parked their cart in the middle of the isle and had conversations. I still need to try the Costco on Powers, because they might not have that problem. (Living in CS)