7 Grocery Store Adventures

Yesterday I spent more time than I have in a very long time at the grocery store. I decided to really read labels and compare different products. It is amazing how different two of the same type of product can be. It is also amazing how many clearly false claims companies can make. 

First it was the organic yogurt section where I buy B's yogurt. We used to give him YoBaby by Stonyfield but as of last month they are no longer on our grocery store shelves (NOOOOOO). I replaced it with another organic yogurt brand but during this trip I looked at the other brands on the shelf to see how they compare.

The brand on the right is what we had switched to. Notice the label clearly indicates that it is 'Certified Organic'. On the back it notes the certification authority and has its stamp (it is from Quebec). The brand on the left says it is organic but not certified organic and there is no certification logo on it. So is it really organic??  The price difference between these two was about $1 (with the non certified "organic" brand on the left being cheaper).  I felt confident in my decision to keep using the brand on the right but then another brand caught my eye.

This brand is certified organic (Canada certification), Foodland Ontario and made from 100% Canadian milk. Bonus is that it is made in the city next to ours which is about a 15 minute drive from here. It's price was comparable to the brand on the right above. I think the decision was clear. I went with the certified organic local yogurt. But I have to wonder how many people make their decision based solely on seeing the word organic and then taking the one with the lowest cost. In this situation I believe it would have resulted in selecting yogurt that may not actually be organic.

A few weeks ago I excitedly posted a picture to Facebook showing that our organic bananas no longer had individual stickers on them. Yesterday at the grocery store I nearly died when I saw the changes they had made. Every single piece of produce that was not in a bag had a sticker on it. I asked a Manager why they had done this and he explained that it was for easy checkout for those using the self checkout. Seems like a very non eco-friendly and labour intensive exercise to save a few seconds during checkout. I plan on writing to the store and corporate office to see if they are open to suggestions to improve this (because I have some).

 

I did a double take in the eco-cleaning section when I saw new packaging on the Seventh Generation products. Love that there are non plastic options now (except the lid) and it is 4x concentrated so you are getting more in less packaging. I'm pretty sure that I could compost it in our city composting program too.

 

How closely do you read labels when you are shopping? Do you check out new brands when they pop up on the shelf to see how they compare to your usual?


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