Your grocery cart is about to cost a little more, and less than the headline makes it sound.
Your Daily Dad Joke
Last year I wrote a book on penguins.
In hindsight, it would have been easier on paper.
Who moved the price?
A price on a shelf tag feels like weather. It goes up, you grumble, and you pay it, or you put the thing back.
That’s why I wanted to pass this along.
You may have seen a headline that PepsiCo is raising prices on Doritos, Ruffles, SunChips, and some sodas. That’s real. But it’s not the whole story.
So is the grocery bill about to jump again? Not by much, from this.
The company says the increases will be in the single digits, percentage-wise, and that the new prices will still be lower than they were at the start of this year. That part is in the story. It just isn’t in the headline.
Here’s my own math, not theirs. Say a bag was $5.00 in January and got the full 15% cut. That’s $4.25. Add 9%, the top of “single digits,” and you’re at about $4.63. More than last week. Less than January. And not every bag got the full cut, so yours may look different.
Now the part I find more interesting. Why were those prices lower in the first place?
The Associated Press tells it this way. The company raised prices by double-digit percentages for eight straight quarters in 2022 and 2023. Then, in AP’s words, “Consumers revolted.” Sales of the chips and the drinks fell. So this February, right before the Super Bowl, the company cut prices on some snacks by up to 15%.
Nobody organized that. No petition. People just put the bag back. Enough of them, for long enough.
I know. It’s chips. Nobody needs me to explain a Dorito.
But it’s a good thing to remember the next time a price makes you feel like you have no say. Sometimes you do. It doesn’t work on everything. You can’t put the electric bill back on the shelf. It works on the stuff you can walk past.
The company says it’s raising prices now because fuel, aluminum, and farm goods cost it more. Its CEO said the lower prices brought some shoppers back, but the quarter still came in weaker than hoped, partly because of slow sales in Canada. Fair enough. That’s their side of the tag.
Here’s the one thing I’d do. This week, I’d pick one thing I buy without looking, and look at the tag before it goes in the cart. That’s all. If the number bugs me, it goes back once, and I see if I miss it.
Anyway, I wanted you to hear the rest of it before a headline had you bracing for another round at the checkout.
What’s one thing you quit buying when the price got silly? Share it in the comments so we can all learn from it. I read every comment.
If the grocery store has started to feel like a test, it isn’t one, and you didn’t do anything wrong. The prices moved. And every so often enough ordinary people shrug and walk past, and a price comes back down. It happened this year. Have a good weekend. I’ll see you Monday.
— Steve
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This is what I’m telling friends like you over coffee. But remember, you do you.