We get a lot of questions about expiration dates.  Since we are a extreme bargain retailer, we've had customers assume that we sell expired or bad food.  While it is true that we sell products closer to their sell by dates than a conventional supermarket, we are extraordinarily careful not to sell anything that is spoiled or bad. Above all, we care about our customers' safety and satisfaction.

It's a tricky thing to understand fully, but in our business, some dates are used as guides and some are strict dates.  It's very important to know the difference between expiration dates, sell by dates, and best by dates. Here's some information to help you untangle the difference between each type of date.

Best if used by and use-by date: With emphasis on the "best" qualifier in this term, it means the product should retain maximum freshness, flavor and texture if used by this date. It is not a purchase-by or safety date. Beyond this date, the product is still good, though you should keep an eye on it to make sure it's still fresh.

Sell-by or pull-by date: This date is used by manufacturers to tell grocers when to remove their product from the shelves, but there is generally still some leeway for home usage. For example, milk often has a sell-by date, but the milk will usually still be good for at least a week beyond that date if properly refrigerated. 

Guaranteed fresh: This date is often used for perishable baked goods. Beyond this date, freshness is no longer guaranteed although it's probably still edible.

Pack date: This is the date the item was packed, most-used on canned and boxed goods. It is usually in the form of an encrypted code not easy to decipher. It may be coded by month (M), day (D), and year (Y), such as YYMMDD or MMDDYY. Or it may be coded using Julian (JJJ) numbers, where January 1 would be 001 and December 31 would be 365. In even more convoluted coding, letters A through M (omitting the letter I) are often assigned to the months, with A being January and M being December, plus a numeric day, either preceded or followed by the numeric year. 

Expiration date: If you haven't used the product by this date, toss it out. Other dating terms are used as a basic guideline, but this one means what it says. 

Information gathered from this article on About.com.

Each product is different!  To get more information on expiration dates, including a comprehensive list of products and their freshness time frame, check out this wiki article on expiration dates.  We were really impressed by it. 

Stay fresh!

It may surprise you to know that Grocery Outlet is on a mission to become eco-friendly.  Even though our primary goal is to bring you quality products at extremely low prices, we also include sustainability and eco-responsibility in our overall strategy.  Here are some things that Grocery Outlet has done in our corporate offices to reduce waste, save energy, and make our planet a better place:

1. We used to provide free bottled water for employees. We've now switched to filtered drinking water coolers and drinking glasses. We recycle the paper cups we do use.
2. We bought Duplex Printers—we encourage printing on both sides of the paper.
3. We switched to energy saving smart power strips
4. We bought energy saving dishwashers. We switched to motion lights in offices to save energy.
6. We made the change to organic, fair trade coffee and biodegradable coffee filters.
7. We provide incentives for employees to ride their bike or carpool to cut down on emissions.
8. We recycle cardboard, plastic, cans, bottles, paper, bubble wrap, and Styrofoam, as well as cartridges, staplers, and other difficult items to recycle.
9. We buy recycled copy paper and office products.
10. We switched our janitorial supplies and paper towels to more sustainable, eco-friendly products.
11. We try to make electronic copies more than paper copies.

Also, we've made sourcing organic, sustainable, and eco-friendly products for you a priority.  You'll regularly see brands like Amy's Organic, Kashi, Annie's, Nature's Gate, and many more in our stores.  The eco-friendly product that I'm most excited about is Bear River Valley Cereals.  We're featuring these cereals in our July ad (consider this a sneak peek!).  Bear River Valley cereals use 75% less packaging than other brands, and the manufacturer supports renewable wind energy.  Also, all shipping cartons are made from 100% recycled product.  You can learn more about Bear River Valley here.

Best of all, each cereal is only 99 cents!  You save up to $2 on this cereal.  That's something to cheer about!

This is just one of many examples of how Grocery Outlet can help you save money and the planet.  We'll keep our eyes out for more fantastic eco-bargains.  Stay tuned!

Victor was our most prepared, even-keeled chef.  He came in early to scope out Grocery Outlet and see what our product offering was before he crafted his dish.  Victor is from Puerto Rico, and wanted to pull together a classic dish with tastes of his home.  His dish, Mojito Mofongo, is a dish of mashed plantains with rice.  He paired it with shrimp cooked in salsa.  The dish impressed our judges with its flavor, elegance, and presentation. It was closest to the caliber one would expect from a fine restaurant.  Just goes to show that good preparation and planning pay off!

 

Victor scopes out the Crown Hill Grocery Outlet.

 

 

Victor's ingredients.

 

 

Victor zesting a lemon while STAR 101.5's Jill Taylor interviews him.

 

Alex was outgoing, funny, and had some fantastic culinary ideas.  The judges liked his concept of Chicken Thighs with Beurre Blanc (a sauce made from butter and white wine) and thought his dish was refined, but he got points knocked off for execution.  The judges wanted the rice to be a little more cooked, so when you make his recipe, be sure to check the rice.

 

Though Alex didn't win first place, he made a delicious dish that was inexpensive and paired well with wine.  He's also the only chef who used wine to cook with in his dish. 

Click here to view Alex's recipes.

Click here to see his receipt.

Josh Schimmel-Bristow was our 3rd place winner with his Lemon Chicken with Parslied Rice Pilaf.  Josh was an engaging, personable chef with admirable knife skills.  I was impressed with his talent in the kitchen and his take on classic comfort food.  Of all the recipes, I think his meal would appeal most to our customers with families—it's the most kid-friendly and would make a fantastic fall or winter dinner.

 

 

Josh comes in just under his $20 budget, even with wine and half and half!

 

Prepping the chicken and vegetables.

 

 

 Lemon Chicken with Parslied Rice Pilaf

Click to download a PDF of Josh's recipes.
To see Josh's receipt, click here.

While all of the dishes scored very well, there can only be one winner.  Stay tuned for Alex and Victor's dishes!

On June 5th, Grocery Outlet hosted a Fresh & Frugal Chef Showdown at our Crown Hill store.  Our premise: 3 student chefs from the Art Institute of Seattle compete for tuition money by creating a restaurant-quality meal for a family of 4 (plus wine!), using ingredients solely from Grocery Outlet.

This event was a fantastic example of what creativity and frugality can do when combined.  Our chefs created and executed delicious meals, and they all came in under their goal of $20.  We're even going to post the receipts to prove it!

Follow along this week as we post their dishes and recipes.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the competition.

 

 

 

 

A couple weeks ago, our Wine Director, Doug Due, and VP of Purchasing, Steve Wilson, traveled to Chile and Argentina to source some fantastic South American wine.  South America is a current "hot" region to buy wine from, given the increasing quality of the wine, plus the still inexpensive price of the wine.

Chile is now the fifth largest exporter of wines in the world, and the ninth largest producer. The climate has been described as midway between that of California and France. The most common grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carmenère.  

Argentina is the fifth largest producer, and has a rich wine history, dating back to the 16th century, when the Spanish imported grape vines to the region.  Argentina is best known for its Malbec and Torrontés wines, though Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Chardonnay and other international varieties are becoming more widely planted.

 

Doug and Steve’s first stop was in Santiago, Chile.  They visited several wineries, cherry-picking great wines.  One of the more exciting finds was Carménère wine, made from a grape found almost exclusively in Chile, although its origins are the Bordeaux region in France.  For more on Carménère, click here.
 
On Wednesday, Steve and Doug flew to Mendoza, Argentina and met with 19 wineries on Thursday and Friday.  Doug is especially excited about the Malbec wines he found.  Malbec is celebrated as an Argentine varietal, though like the Carménère, it traces its origins back to Bordeaux.  Malbec is a very intense wine, so it is also commonly used in blends, such as with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon to create the red French Bordeaux claret blend.  For more on Malbec, click here.

On Saturday, our intrepid adventurers were scheduled to fly back to Chile, but the Chile earthquake woke them up at 3:34 am!  Mendoza is 105 miles from Santiago, which is itself 100 miles from the quake’s epicenter.  The Andes dampened the effects of the quake—Mendoza shook, but did not receive anywhere near the devastation that Chile encountered.  Still, Steve said, it was quite scary to be woken up by the hotel rolling and shaking.   Instead of flying back home through Santiago, Doug and Steve transferred to flights out of Buenos Aires.  We’re happy to have them back safe and sound!

Doug says that we will be planning a South American wine promotion in a month or two.  Since the earthquake damaged a lot of the export infrastructure, we’re still waiting for the wine to show up.  Still, when that wine comes in, it’s going to be fantastic!

“Look for quality and pricing on par or better than what we had for Australia,” Doug says.  “We’re very excited to bring you top-quality wines at bottom-of-the-barrel prices.”

It’s not a stretch to say that Grocery Outlet has the best deals on wine in town.  Our process for sourcing fantastic wines at incredible deals is a little out of the ordinary, so we’d like to shed a little light on it for you.

The 3-Tier System

99% of total wine sold in the U.S. is moved through a 3-tier system, and wineries are the first tier.  While wineries put their heart and soul into the wines they make, they do not have the ability to sell all of their wine direct to the consumers, so they work with importers and distributors to market, sell, warehouse and deliver their product to the local wine shops, restaurants and liquor stores that sell most of the wine in America.

The second tier in the 3-tier system is made up of the importers and in-state distributors.  Importers and distributors choose the wineries they represent, and develop a ‘Book of Brands’.  Most large importers and distributors will offer all varietals from the most famous wine growing regions of the world.  Smaller distributors are usually more specialized in what they offer, sometimes only selling wines from a specific country or region.  

All importers and distributors bring wine into their warehouse and have salespeople that visit the wine buyers at the local wine shops, restaurants and liquor stores.  These salespeople take samples to the wine buyers, who taste the current vintages available for sale.  Wine buyers try to pick and choose wines that fit their customers’ taste or flavor profile.  The only wines offered are those represented by the importers and distributors.  As a result, buyers only have access to wines represented by importers and distributors within this system.

The third tier in the 3-tier system is the retailer or restaurant that sells the wine to the consumer.  There are many different reasons why wine buyers chose one wine over another, but most are knowledgeable about wine, their customer base, and what they can sell.  This is why you see a large difference between a grocery store selection and a fine wine shop, from a Steak House wine list to an Italian restaurant.  

How does Grocery Outlet come in?

The 3-tier system is very inefficient: there’s a lag from when the winery releases the wine to when the importer and distributor have the wine available to show and sell, so sometimes they miss the window of opportunity.  Also, importers and distributors sometimes buy wines and find they cannot sell the wine at a certain price or in a specific market.  All of these inefficiencies create opportunities for non-traditional retailers like Grocery Outlet.

The industry average is 90-95% efficiency.  In most years, importers, distributors and wineries will sell most of their wines, but almost always there’s some wine remaining.  If a winery produces 10,000 cases and is 95% effective as selling their wines, they have 500 cases at the end of the year; if a winery produces 5,000,000 they have 50,000 cases.

These overstocks are most of what Grocery Outlet buys.  The wine can be from the winery, importer or distributor.  Past vintages are opportunistic buys, because once a vintage has been replaced by a newer vintage, the salespeople stop showing the older vintage.  Older vintages become a storage expense, not a sales opportunity.  Wineries, importers and distributors have money tied up in this stock.   To quickly move through non-performing inventory, wineries, importers, and distributors will sell the wine at cost or even a loss.

This is why Grocery Outlet can offer wines that were sold 6 months ago at 20-35% of regular retail.  This is the first of several postings that will help you understand who we are and how we find you such great deals.

Cheers,
Doug

Wine Buyer for Grocery Outlet

Grocery Outlet's customers and employees have always known that it’s hip to be frugal.  You hear a lot in the news these days about the downswing in the economy and how many people are turning to frugal measures to cope with layoffs, reduced hours, and smaller paychecks.  At Grocery Outlet, we believe you shouldn’t have to sacrifice quality, abundance, freshness, or fun to be frugal.  In fact, being frugal IS fun.

Frugality to us means never paying full retail.  It means finding ways to make your dollar stretch beyond what you thought possible.  It doesn’t mean being cheap; it means making responsible choices based on what you actually need, without sacrificing what you truly want.  When you are frugal, you don’t have to worry as much about your future.  You have control over your spending and you use your income judiciously to make the best choices for yourself and your family.  Best of all, frugality challenges you to be creative, to find ways to make a limited supply last and to discover the bargains your family lives on.

 

 

We can help! Grocery Outlet has been providing our customers with incredible bargains since 1946.  That gives us over 60 years of experience feeding families.  After all that time, you’d think we’d know a thing or two about how to supply fantastic food at amazing prices.  Not only that, but we’ve picked up some trade secrets along the way, and that is what this blog is all about.

We want to share our secrets, tips, and ideas with you, to show you how to become a Bargainista and get the most out of Grocery Outlet.  We also want to hear from you.  We know there’s always more to learn and some of our best ideas come directly from our shoppers.  By tapping into all that knowledge we all grow our frugality resources, which will benefit all of us as a productive, interdependent community—a family of bargain hunters!  And that sounds like a winning idea to us.