Everyone has to shop for groceries but
not everyone has to like it you'll like it even less when you find
out more ways that the grocery stores are scamming you
some of these scams are pretty direct but others can be a lot more subtle and
hard to spot here are the 10 ways grocery stores are
scamming you without knowing milk is in the back it's
not your imagination grocery stores really do put the milk in
the back of the store what they run this particular scam so
you have to walk past hundreds of colorfully packaged items
and delicious aromas just to get a carton of milk
moo juice is one of the best selling items at grocery stores
so it makes sense for them to use that fact to their advantage
milk and cream aren't the only products grocery stores like to place
strategically to increase sales this means spreading common items like
bread coffee cereal and pasta around to different
aisles so shoppers will have to cover a large
part of the store even if they are there to only buy a few
items the more time you end up spending in the
grocery store the more likely you will be to grab some
impulse items other than the jug of milk you intended to buy
some studies show that a sizeable percentage of shoppers spend about 30
on impulse buys every week that's really interesting
so the next time you're walking to the back of your local grocery store to get
a gallon of milk you'll be armed with this knowledge and
perhaps you'll resist the impulse to buy that tempting bag of
chips the grocery store has conveniently placed at eye level some grocery stores
will sell milk from grab-and-go cases at the front of the store
to get back some sales they lose to convenience stores
but don't count on your store offering this choice
musical music what is that a company called muzak was formed in
1934 to take advantage of an idea called stimulus production this theory argued
that instrumental music played at a low
volume in an office would increase worker productivity muzak
became well known for providing the pleasantly bland
elevator music are you guys seriously this calm
the stimulus production theory was seized on by retailers including grocery
stores to shape the atmospherics in their
stores the store owners realized they had an opportunity to design the
shopping experience in such a way as to encourage shoppers to buy more the
pleasant music played at a low volume is supposed to increase shoppers
feelings of well-being and comfort and this translates into
spending more time in the store shopping instead of rushing in and out with only
a few items you'll be more likely to extend the enjoyable
experience of being in the grocery store we'd like to think we aren't this
malleable but clearly the grocery stores have done
a ton of research and have taken certain steps because
they think we are no small carts here
the grocery stores have done a lot of research to see what will get shoppers
to buy the most items some of us don't understand the
concept of rationing one of the scams they came up with is to
provide giant shopping carts according to the research
if shoppers use shopping carts that are hard to fill
they will buy more to fill it up apparently people will have an
unconscious desire to put more items in the cart so it doesn't look
empty people are dumb panicky dangerous animals and you know it
by the time you've used up a lot of the available space in these
oversized shopping carts you'll have spent a considerable amount of money on
your grocery bill but the stores hope you won't notice do
these big shopping carts really make a difference
the grocery stores must think they do otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to
replace their more normal sized carts with the
plus size versions research suggests the stores are right
to offer bigger carts because some of the studies show people
tend to spend more time and more money when they're shopping with a big cart
instead of letting the grocery stores try to scam you with their
psychological games you can try to be more proactive
for example use one of the small hand carts
or your own small bag for your grocery items with this little trick
you'll be more likely to buy only what you need
spend less money and get out of the grocery store
a lot sooner than with a giant shopping cart
a fish story hello my name is bruce grocery stores often market their
seafood as healthier options than red meat and pork
fish can be a better choice but this doesn't mean stores aren't playing games
with how they try to sell you on seafood seafood labeled as wild is coveted by
many shoppers who are seeking out the freshest and healthiest choices
but grocery stores can use a technicality to try to mislead you
farm bred fish live and grow in water just as
fish in the wild but a lot of shoppers would feel like they're being scammed if
they found out the farmed fish was being sold as
wild a 2015 time magazine investigation found
that as much as 43 percent of salmon sold in grocery
stores was mislabeled almost 70 percent of the salmon labeled
wild atlantic salmon turned out to be raised in farms what
are you doing only selling the finest farm-raised salmon in the county that's
all the investigation also found that less
appealing kinds of salmon were being labeled as higher end salmon
the spice racket it's the spice rack get it rack
spices can add just the right flavor to a recipe
but they tend to be pricey especially considering that they usually are sold
in tiny containers for the prices you pay in grocery stores
for spices you have a right to assume you're getting what's on the label but
your assumption might be wrong to increase profits
companies will sometimes cut spices with cheaper ingredients
nutmeg a common spice used in baking cookies and pies
can be cut with coffee husks i want to think that you're joking
but for some reason i feel like you're not spices can be expensive and time
consuming to cultivate process and ship so it's not hard to
understand why spice makers would be tempted to cut
corners but selling a product in grocery stores
under false pretenses amounts to fraud a long list of spices
have been tampered with including black pepper turmeric saffron
and oregano there is also an extensive list of fillers that are added to spices
which includes syrups chalk powder papaya seeds
bran and sawdust even if none of the false ingredients would actually
harm you there is a principle at stake here
you should get what you pay for honey where is the honey coming from
the use of honey for medicinal purposes as well as a food
goes back to ancient times in those days honey was not heavily processed
today's commercial honey is usually pasteurized to kill bacteria
but the process also kills off many of the healthful nutrients naturally found
in honey the u.s food and drug administration describes authentic honey
as having pollen but most honey found in grocery stores
does not contain any pollen food safety news investigated
honey sold in grocery stores and found as much as 76 of the honey on
the shelves contained no pollen at all much of the phony honey
is produced in india and china with a process that
dilutes it with water and high fructose corn syrup this over
processing kills off the enzymes and pollen that make honey nutritious
in the first place so really all you're getting at the grocery store when you
buy commercially processed honey is a yellowish sugar gel-like substance
with almost zero nutritional value shut down honey just
add water a 2017 article in consumer reports described how some orange juice
companies began marketing the fact that they were
watering down their products you'd think they'd want to hide this
scam instead of trying to use it as a selling point
but the orange juice producers seem to want to take advantage of many people's
health and weight concerns the fact is watered-down fruit juices
are indeed lower in sugar and calories however it
is also true that if you buy watered-down fruit juices in the grocery
store you're essentially paying premium prices
for water instead of fruit this shouldn't
have to be said but orange and other fruit juices aren't
the cause of obesity there are many eating habits that could
be problematic well daddy all the calories in the chicken are found in the
skin and the fat such as indulging in too much greasy
fast food and too many sugary snacks and desserts
a glass of fruit juice is healthier than most
things people eat so long as you're drinking the type that
isn't loaded up with tons of added sugar to discourage
drinking regular fruit juices seems like a misguided idea in general
but to go a step further and make money off of it by marketing
watered-down juices in grocery stores as some kind of
improvement seems like a particularly sleazy scam
hey uh do you want some say cheese everybody say cheese oh i'm
actually i'm a vegan could you please have us say something
else since milk cheese is a popular dairy food at grocery stores
you might be wondering how the stores are scamming you when it comes to cheese
you might not know what cellulose is but you've probably heard of wood pulp
and wouldn't want it in your shredded cheese
this is why the manufacturers list it as cellulose on the package
to be clear cellulose isn't bad for you it is a natural substance found in
fruits and vegetables and helps you digest food it's great
that there is no health issue to this scam
but this doesn't excuse companies that are selling cheese with
unknown amounts of this filler replacing actual cheese shredded parmesan cheddar
mozzarella etc are not cheap products and they are even more pricey than we
thought if a significant amount of the product consists of filler
instead of cheese these companies have a green light from the food and drug
administration to use wood pulp in shredded cheese because it has
anti-clumping properties that are useful for processed cheese that must be
shipped and sit in a refrigerated case before
being sold and put in your refrigerator this is a legitimate reason for
cellulose but companies trying to increase profits would be tempted to use
as much wood pulp as they can and as little
actual cheese as possible the answer to this
scam is to shred your own cheese at home but this is not very common because the
pre-shredded cheese is so convenient olive oil
olive oil olive oil has become the go-to oil for many home chefs
you're told it is better for you than vegetable oils made from corn
but are grocery stores really being sold extra virgin olive oil
or something else forbes and other publications have reported that 80
of italian olive oil can be considered fraudulent
some olive oil experts argue that the real problem isn't fraud but
simply poor quality products labeled as high quality virgin or extra virgin
olive oil sometimes the olive oil you bought at
the grocery store isn't olive oil at all but vegetable oil
with added color and aroma unless you extract
the oil directly from olives yourself how are you supposed to know what's in
the bottle the problem has gotten so bad in italy that its government started
calling the fraudulent olive oil producers
the agro mafia is that supposed to be some kind of a joke
much of this italian olive oil is actually produced in syria
morocco or tunisia or sometimes other european countries such as greece and
spain italian companies use these countries
for their products because they can be produced more cheaply and with fewer
controls unfortunately american consumers are
often the primary victims of these organized crimes against
olive oil flower arrangements i got a really embarrassing display of
white roses you might have noticed that the
arrangements of colorful flowers with their sweet fragrance
often greet you as you enter your local grocery store
while you might not have given this much thought you can be sure
that the people who run the grocery store have given it a lot of thought
do you have a problem so what's the deal with fresh flowers and why do the
grocery stores think they are important to their image
the sights and smells of fresh flowers is a psychological trick to convince
your brain that you have entered a place where
bountiful supplies of fresh produce are ripe
for the taking the flowers help create an impression that the fruits
vegetables meats and dairy are as inviting as the flowers you
enjoyed when you walked into the grocery store the stores don't stop with flowers
however they usually put produce baked goods or
hot foods like rotisserie chicken near the front of the store as well if
this seems a bit silly to you understand that other
industries try to entice you with smells too
some movie theaters pump the smell of fresh popcorn popping
out into the parking lot so you can get a whiff
and hopefully a hankering for a bag of popcorn by the time you go inside
and see the concession stand you read my mind it is debatable how much
these little scams actually work but it seems like the grocery stores and movie
theaters that put out the effort think they do stay right here and tap on
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