Day 239 - The Irony of Groceries

I was at the grocery store the other day and I realized I was staring at the options for bread for a really long time. Longer than I have ever sized up bread. I realized I was actually shopping. Comparing the prices. Trying to determine which had more slices. Figuring out which had the longest shelf life. I have never paid this close attention to my groceries. I normally do not shop. I normally just pick things up. But now that I'm on my VISTA budget I really have to think about stretching my dollar further.

So this got me to thinking about how ironic it is that I now spend so much time considering the price of groceries. The entire time I worked at Kraft (you know. the manufacturer of most groceries) I never truly thought about the price our consumers were paying. I mean, on some level I was aware that it was going to be painful to pay $4 for a package of American processed cheese for someone somewhere, but it was in more of an abstract way. But now I realize that people do not just shrug their shoulders and say "Shoot. I hate that groceries are so expensive. But o well...what are you going to do?" No. They say "Ok. I can buy bread, milk and eggs. And we'll have to do without cheese on this trip."

It just feels so ironic that only now do I feel more closely connected with groceries than I did when I was in my ivory tower of Grocery Marketing. Only now am I aware that milk is cheaper this week than it was last, so I should probably stock up and buy a full gallon. Only now do I really understand the consumer I spent two years selling to, convincing myself that a higher price point was justified all in the name of a brand.

And it just feels so unfortunate. Imagine if everyone at Kraft really understood what their consumers are facing? Imagine if they had to spend a month living on the wage the majority of their consumers live on? I bet they'd want to re-think their go to market strategy. Think about where costs could be cut to deliver a product that is more reasonably priced. But that will never happen. The people who make the decisions on how products are priced at a large company will likely never have had to really think about how to get food on the table. Not really think about it.

And I guess what is even more ironic is that those who work at a big food company like Kraft and leave to say "try a year in poverty" are probably not going to ever go back to the big food company. So the lessons they've gathered from being "out in the field" will never be brought back.

And thus processed cheese ends up remaining at $4 a package.