Last week, Stop & Shop, the leading supermarket chain in the Northeast, announced that it was dropping everyday prices on thousands of grocery items. Just weeks earlier, a few Albertsons Companies divisions including Star Market and Shaw’s in the Boston area introduced “New Lower Prices, Every Day.”
Interestingly, Albertsons even defines what it means by “lower prices” in the fine print on the homepage of all its divisions.
*MOUSE PRINT
All these price cuts are certainly good news for inflation-weary grocery shoppers. But this move is reminiscent of similar price cuts done by various supermarket chains over the decades. (Funny how they don’t ballyhoo price hikes in store ads.)
Ace supermarket guru, Bill Wunner, who runs Coupons In The News, found this Stop & Shop ad from over 50 years ago when the supermarket made a similar announcement cutting prices:
Look how low grocery prices were then.
Gold Medal Flour – 10 pounds was $1.15. Today $11.99.
Stop & Shop Butter – 1 pound was 77 cents. Today $3.99.
Skippy Peanut Butter – 28 ounces was 91 cents. Today $4.99.
Coffee Mate – 16 ounces was 87 cents. Today $3.99
And if you turn back the clock some more decades, there were supermarket price wars then too. And you could find even more amazing prices because back then groceries literally cost pennies (but wages were low too).
Piggly Wiggly – (~1941-1944) – Palm Beach PostEggs – 21 cents a dozen
Maxwell House Coffee – 19 cents a pound
Maine potatoes – 21 cents for 10 pounds
Sirloin steak – 29 cents a pound
Carrots – 5 cents a bunch
[Piggly Wiggly does not show today’s prices on its website]
Ah, if only groceries were this cheap now.
Inflation calculator says that a 1971 dollar is now “worth” $7.93.
While we can wish those prices would come back, would we also wish for the minimum wage for those days also to come back? They go hand-in-hand.
Ah yes, your Grampa always reminisces about how “ice cream cones were a nickel”, but never mentions taking home 5 bucks a week….
3 of the 4 “low” prices from 50 years ago were actually MORE expensive then.
The confusion always arises with folks thinking a dollar then = a dollar now. Got to factor in equivalent purchasing power!
Matt, you bring up some some excellent points. I was amazed to see the ad in the 40s with eggs at 21¢/dozen. But checking with ChatGPT, 21¢ in today’s dollars is about $4.62. In our area of the world, Safeway has a digital coupon offer of eggs for about $2.40/dozen. Here’s what I got from ChatGPT:
A price of $0.21 in 1941 would be worth about $4.62 in 2025 after adjusting for inflation.
yes Dan!
Milk in 1941, adjusted for inflation = $ 11.00 a gallon!
No thanks, I’ll take TODAY’s amazing prices
As long as the majority of Americans continue worshipping big government and looking to government as their savior,growth of wealth destroying government will continue,the country will continue to decline,along with it’s currency.
Can you supply more detail on your comments?
My first house in ’78 was $58,500. Inflation calculator says that equivalent to approximately $290,000 today. In fairness, it has been expanded from 3 to 4 bedrooms, and the unfinished basement of my time is now finished. And there have been other upgrades. And now, Trulia pegs its value at $760,000.
BTW, my prop taxes back then were a hair under $3,000. I can’t imagine what they are now.
I’ve been married for 60 years and clearly remember the grocery prices from 1965. That’s why it HURTS to go to the market today! My 5 cent Jello is gone, so is the 49 cent a pound coffee, along with the dozen eggs, 3 for $1.00. Oh, I laugh, know that prices have steadily gone up (25 cent bread), know that our Social Security and my husband’s retirement fund is enough to keep us going, but it’s a much more complicated world.
We used to get Green Stamps for shopping, paste them in a book and voila! Soon I had a card table! Nowadays, you have to have a cellphone, load it up with “bargains” and “values” and make sure you clip those coupons, and the store website online knows just what brings you in to shop. (“Don’t you want more cottage cheese?”)
I bet Cleopatra never had to think of the price of lettuce vs. making sandwiches without it!
Food is still dirt cheap…in other countries. I visited Indonesia and food was incredibly cheap there. There must be a lot of markup, middlemen, and transportation costs in the United States.
We have joined the war on grocery prices on the side of prices
Stop & Shop’s so called lower prices are still higher than nearby competitors, namely Market Basket and Walmart, to name a couple.