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Orange County used to have quite a few dairy farms but dairy farming is generally a tough biz. Which would you choose, milking cows 2x/day for low $/lb or selling land to Chapel Hill wannabees?
Harris Teeter is the only grocery store I have shopped in, and it is quite a bit more expensive than the grocery stores here in FL. It is a nice store though. Also, I noticed on my receipt that NC charges a 2% tax on groceries in addition to the local sales tax on non-food items? What is this for? Here in FL, we only pay sales tax on non-food items.
Harris Teeter is the only grocery store I have shopped in, and it is quite a bit more expensive than the grocery stores here in FL. It is a nice store though. Also, I noticed on my receipt that NC charges a 2% tax on groceries in addition to the local sales tax on non-food items? What is this for? Here in FL, we only pay sales tax on non-food items.
Just pulled out a Kroger receipt and I don't see the extra 2% on it for any non food items. I had a kid puzzle and kitty litter on there.. nothing extra taxed on it. Hmmm strange that you have it from HT.
I don't have any statistics about food costs anywhere -
but have you considered that the food you're buying is what you're used to, and locally grown in New England? The example you chose was butter, which (like someone has mentioned) is a dairy product. Upstate NY, for example, has a ridiculously large amount of dairy farms. I'd be willing to bet if you compared pork prices, for example, you'd find the opposite. Same goes for peaches, sweet potatoes, chicken/chicken eggs, tobacco products, peanut products, blueberries, tomatoes, etc.
Additionally, perhaps it has something to do with the Raleigh area? My understanding is that certain areas will consistently have higher grocery prices than other areas. I don't nessecarily think that Raleigh would/should be higher, but that's certainly a possiblity. And, of course, you might just be shopping at an expensive grocery store, or perhaps one in an expensive area.
Harris Teeter is the only grocery store I have shopped in, and it is quite a bit more expensive than the grocery stores here in FL. It is a nice store though. Also, I noticed on my receipt that NC charges a 2% tax on groceries in addition to the local sales tax on non-food items? What is this for? Here in FL, we only pay sales tax on non-food items.
Darn,
I just in FL for vacation and food was cheaper than NY. I was hoping NC was as cheap as FL or food.
Not counting locally produced products it seems from reading about NC grocery prices that processed and packaged foodstuffs brought in from out of state are also more expensive. The vast amount of items sold in the supermarket come from somewhere else so I assume that the higher prices are the result of wholesalers and distributers. Could be that union labor is much higher in that sector in NC. This is not meant to criticize unions, but could be an explanation concerning pricing. I know many of the products I buy in VT come from far away states, yet the prices on many items is still cheaper than in NC. Up here many local items are actually more expensive due to limited quanitity or novelty of the brand. Maybe somebody on the forum actually works in the industry and can advise of the pricing issue.
from what the floridians were saying they are the same as florida as in nc AT least in charlotte area....I wouldnt worry about it, If this puts u at ease BUTTER is more here in NJ than NC...LOL and that is land o lakes...heee
Could be that union labor is much higher in that sector in NC. This is not meant to criticize unions, but could be an explanation concerning pricing.
Unions? Oh boy, you don't even MENTION that word around food corporations - especially in NC. There is no union activity allowed in that sector. I know because I work for a chain and any talk of unions is treated as the highest form of heresy.
The profit margin is very small in the grocery industry. We are always looking at ways to cut costs. For several years, my corporation was trying to find ways to reduce "shrink" - that is, wasted product. Whether it was food that didn't sell, to wasted parings of meat in that department, to theft, that created a large amount of profit loss. Then, competition creates cost. I'm sure most stores would prefer to have their stuff just sitting on a shelf for people to buy, but with Walmart the biggest competitor in retail, the other chains feel the need to make their stores more attractive to consumers. The chain I work for is in the midst of a big remodel-reset of dozens of stores to make them more appealing.
Some of the cost of groceries is not determined by the store chain. You'd be surprised at how much shelf space in the stores is "rented" to distributors. The store chain doesn't buy the product, they allow ... say .. a local bread distributor to come in and place their product on the shelves.
A "hidden" cost that I'll bet no one knows about, is food security. Since 9/11, one area that has been identified as a target is the nation's food supply. The corporation I work for used to be pretty slack in the area of who had access to the distribution centers and home office. Now, we are locked down tight - I mean, like a fortress. I can't imagine the millions spent fencing in everything, setting up guards and cameras, and maintaining that system.
More than anything, transportation of goods and distribution is probably the biggest cost. Goods come into geographically-placed warehouses, are sorted by hundreds of workers there, and then sent out to stores. All that stuff has to be kept track of in a very complicated inventory system supported by a large staff of people at the home office.
When I interviewed for my job, I was given a tour of the home office and one of the warehouses; the manager giving me a brief explanation of the process of product distribution; and I could only remark "wow, I didn't know getting a can of pork 'n beans from the factory to the grocery store was such a complicated process!" But it is. I'm not sure what would account for the cost difference between states, but the grocery industry operates on a slim profit margin. With Walmart being the biggest threat to chains (Winn-Dixie and BiLo being two chains driven away because of them), the grocers keep their prices as low as possible.
I'm curious about the supermarkets renting shelf space rather than buying the product. Does the supermarket determine the selling price of the product? Is the vendor required to stock each individual store? How do they handle small local vendors? Do you like being in the grocery biz?
Thanks,
Alice
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Food prices in NC
Oh boy, you don't even MENTION that word around food corporations - especially in NC. There is no union activity allowed in that sector. I know because I work for a chain and any talk of unions is treated as the highest form of heresy.
