Lists

Why Are These 11 Grocery Store Items So Expensive?

by:
October 14, 2015

When I started this article, there were 10 days till my next paycheck and roughly $200 left in my bank account. Not a lot—and certainly not enough to indulge in big-ticket items if I wanted my money to last.

As a home cook on a budget, I’m mindful of how much things cost. Dairy and pantry items often dismay me with their high prices. That doesn’t mean I don’t buy them (I’m looking at you, pine nuts!), but it does mean I think twice about what I really want and need, and what, if any, economical hacks I can implement or substitutes I can use. 

Here are items that I don’t just toss into my cart:

1. Vanilla Beans
In my baking life, I’ve bought vanilla beans exactly once and it was so long ago, I cannot recall why. Though feather-light, at $116.80, they’re hardly cheap. They’re a labor-intensive spice that grow from orchids; they need hand pollination, for crying out loud; and the biggest producers are now in faraway Madagascar and Indonesia.

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The price seems justified, certainly, but if you’re like me and just cannot get over that high per pound cost, rest assured there is an easy substitute: vanilla extract, which costs $4.12 for a two-ounce jar. (There’s also imitation vanilla extract, which costs about $1.60 for an eight-ounce jar if even extract is too much.) 

Opinions vary on exact substitution ratios; anywhere between 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon extract per bean should do it—but keep in mind, it depends on how much of a vanilla essence you want in your dish. Some home bakers insist on using vanilla bean when infusion is called for—in hot chocolate, for instance. For my friend Lia Miller, vanilla bean is essential in crème brûlée or a crème pâtissière—“in other words, in something that really needs a fresh taste of vanilla,” she wrote in an email. “In cake batter, vanilla extract is fine.”

Others disagree. My other friend Rachel Porter is among them. “The seeds are cute and signal snaz,” Porter said, “but I can't think of a time when they really improve flavor more than an excellent vanilla extract”—which, in any case, she makes herself from vanilla bean.

 

2. Walnuts
Like most nuts, they’re not cheap; at the Fairway near my office, they go for $13.99 a pound if I buy the supermarket’s pre-packed option. If I go for the halves and pieces together they’re a bit cheaper at $11.99 a pound.

Other nuts are in the same ballpark: Almonds are $9.99 a pound and pecans, which I only ever buy to make pie at Thanksgiving, are $13.99. There are cheaper options, but you get what you pay for: I worry that the pre-packed walnuts might sit around for a long time. The difference in price when buying freshly packaged nuts—or nuts from a regularly replenished bulk bin—is sufficiently small that it’s worth it to me to spend the extra pennies for the fantasy (or is it delusion?) that I’m eating well.

More: Alice Medrich explains why she buys whole nuts rather than nut pieces.

 

3. Artichoke Hearts
I heart artichoke hearts but am generally too lazy to steam fresh artichokes (it takes 45 minutes at least!). Artichoke hearts that someone else has prepared will do me just fine. In olive oil at the deli counter they run about $7.48 per pound.

While I generally like olive oil, in this case, I find it obscures the artichoke taste rather than enhances. I like my artichoke hearts unadulterated—or to be adulterated by dressing that I administer. Native Forest whole artichoke hearts (in water they weigh almost 10 ounces; the dry weight is about 5 1/2 ounces), cost $2.57 and are good enough for me to eat as a snack straight out of the jar, or to add to a salad where my own dressing dresses them up just fine. 

 

4. Crème Fraîche 
With accents grave and circonflexe and a relatively high price ($3.74 for 7 1/2 ounces), crème fraîche intimidates. A higher-fat cousin to the more pedestrian seeming sour cream—itself quite delicious with blueberries mixed in, and, at $3.16 for 16 ounces, economical—crème fraîche as something to pay for is, comment dit-on, passé.

In the past, crème fraîche was a French import and considered a specialty item. Those attributes accounted for its relative expense. Now that dairies at home are making it, it’s harder to understand why it remains expensive. If you want it but don’t want to pay for it, though, there’s an easy solution: Substitute sour cream, or make it yourself with heavy cream and yogurt, and gain that invaluable special satisfaction of self-sufficiency.

 

5. Cultured Butter
Butter is cultured when the cream used to make it is fermented before it’s churned. Fans say it’s got a nuttier, tangier taste than regular butter and, because added cultures increase fat content, it makes baked goods even better. Maybe the extra step taken to add cultures to the cream is what causes its higher price—not to mention the cost of high-quality cream in the first place. Cultured butter costs $3.49 for 4 ounces; where I shop, $3.61 will buy four 8-ounce sticks of regular butter.

As a treat, I’d buy it to see if it’s really that good. And if it is, I might even make it myself—all I need is heavy cream and whole milk yogurt, which I might already have around for crème fraîche production.

 

6. Pine Nuts
There’s no getting around the expense of pine nuts. Where I shop they’re $42.40 per pound. Likely they’re in that range where you shop, too. That’s because pine nuts take at least 18 months to mature and are a challenge to harvest.

Right now, there’s bag of pine nuts weighing about 1/5 of a pound in my fridge, for which I paid $7.21. That’s a fair amount of money, but if used sparingly and kept cool and dry, pine nuts last a while, and absolutely nothing else offers the shape, texture, and slightly sweet taste toasted and ground up in pesto or tossed in with a green salad. 

 

7. Anchovies
A four-ounce tin of Bel Aria white anchovies is nearly 9 bucks, and I’ve seen 7.4-ounce jar of regular anchovies from Spain go for a whopping $30.49. White anchovies are marinated in vinegar, while regular anchovies are cured and salted. In my view, there’s little reason to spend that much on these little fillets, when other brands cost far less—4 ounces from Roland costs $3.99.

Some anchovy fans say the pricey ones are worth the money if you’re eating them whole in a salad or on a sandwich or a pizza. I buy a 1 1/2-ounce package of anchovies from Crown Prince for $2.53 and they work just fine among my salad greens and in pasta sauces, where they dissolve in the cooking process, leaving behind a faint briny essence. If even that much fish is too much fish, there are work-arounds to achieve the umami anchovies bestow.

 

8. Dried Cherries
What accounts for the high price of dried cherries? At my supermarket, two different kinds—dried Bing organic cherries from Uzbekistan and red tart cherries (also from Uzbekistan)—cost $24.20 per pound and $20.56 per pound respectively. Is it because they’re pitted, as one farm’s social media post suggested? Is it because they come from far away? Is it because their growing season is short and they’re a small fruit that get even smaller once dried?

Sure, they’re good but they’re not an essential part of my pantry (err, I live in New York City, let’s just call it a shelf). On that once a year occasion that I get a hankering for granola and make it myself, I’ll pass on the cherries and use dried cranberries ($2.99 for 6 ounces) instead.

 

9. Sun-Dried Tomatoes 
Sure, they’re delicious on a sandwich with olive oil, cheese, and basil, but sun-dried tomatoes are not for the light-walleted among us. At my neighborhood market, a 10-ounce jar of them in olive oil costs $8.99; they’ll be pricier still at the deli counter or from bulk barrels where they’ve likely been dried more recently. If you buy them in a container without oil, they’re cheaper—about $7 for 12 ounces via FreshDirect.

If that’s still too much money, try making them yourself, though be advised it’s a laborious process that calls for roughly 5 pounds of fresh tomatoes to yield 2 cups of dried ones. What you save in money, you might pay for in time.

  

 

10. Parmesan 
With respect to Oliver!, I find myself tweaking one of its anthems into “Cheese, glorious cheese!” There are so many to adore, after all. But what’s the difference between Parmesan and Parmigiano-Reggiano, both considered excellent pasta enhancers? The price, for one.

At Fairway, a wedge of Parmesan costs $8.99 a pound (or you can get a pre-shredded, pre-packaged 4-ounce container of it for a very reasonable $5.29). That’s a lot, but nothing compared to the $15.99 a pound that the wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano sets you back. It comes down, mostly, to official decrees over naming rights. A 2008 European Union decree asserted that cheese that’s called Parmigiano-Reggiano can only be called that if it hails from the Parma region of Italy. 

And then there's shredded Parmesan in bags—which, to me, is lazy. I like grating it myself and typically get Parmesan over Parmigiano-Reggiano because of expense, unless I'm feeling particularly flush and want to pretend I'm someone for whom imports are de rigeur.

 

11. Almond Butter
Peanut butter is every (allergy-free) child’s go-to spread. It’s easy and healthy. It tastes good. And at $4.88 for a 16-ounce jar of organic peanut butter from Once Again, for instance, it’s cheap.

Almond butter appeals to more refined tastes. Or if not that, then at least more expensive ones. The same amount of almond butter from the same company costs, where I shop, $13.36. Almonds, which in the United States only grow in California, take a lot longer to harvest (http://northcountryfoodcoop.com/?p=242); it takes a tree three years to get to the point where it can start producing nuts.

Peanuts, on the other hand, take four to five months to yield produce, and they’re self-pollinating. In recent years, almonds have gotten a bad rap as a major water consumer on the drought-ravaged West Coast. But they’re still around and still beloved all over the world. I love almonds—less so almond butter, but I could be convinced to give making it myself a whirl, just to see if I can be convinced to make it a staple.

Editors' note: This article originally read that the author had two days and $200 left in the month, but it should have read that she had $200 left until her next paycheck, in 10 days. The post has been edited to reflect this change.

What grocery store items do you think twice before buying? Tell us in the comments!

See what other Food52 readers are saying.

  • Bart Hawkins
    Bart Hawkins
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    Richard
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    Jared Paventi
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    Amy
  • Derek Phillips
    Derek Phillips
Sara Ivry

Written by: Sara Ivry

Sara Ivry is a freelance writer, editor, and podcaster based in New York City. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Bookforum, Adweek, Money, Design Observer, and other outlets. The host of the National Magazine Award-winning podcast Vox Tablet, she has worked on audio projects for Gimlet Media, Slate Studios, Kveller, Understood.org, and other organizations.

35 Comments

Bart H. January 20, 2016
Tone deaf? Screw the rest of the world..$200 is a skinny living for ten days virtually anywhere in America. Only Welfare recipients live better.
 
Richard October 26, 2015
There was a cherry crop failure in the USA in 2012 and again this year, 2015.
 
Jared P. October 23, 2015
I read an article about a year ago that the European pine nut harvest was damaged by drought, driving the cost up. Add in the costs of labor and...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-03-01/pine-nuts-rate-foie-gras-prices-as-bugs-to-drought-cut-harvests

http://www.oregonlive.com/cooking/2014/04/pine_nut_sticker_shock_as_pric.html
 
Amy October 21, 2015
Loved the article - very practical. Agree with Derek Phillips about the Parmigiano Reggiano. It makes even the simplest of pasta dishes taste extra special. Here's a hint if you love pine nuts: buy them from Costco. They have the best price I've seen anywhere, and far better quality than our own local gourmet market.
 
Derek P. October 20, 2015
There is no substitute for Parmigiano-Reggiano in terms of quality, and more importantly TASTE. If you are making a dish that calls for "Parmesan" and you use Parmigiano-Reggiano, your dish will taste VASTLY better. If you have to, at least find some Grana Padano.
 
trix October 19, 2015
Might have missed something, either math or english ;-) --
"Parmesan costs $8.99 a pound (or you can get a pre-shredded, pre-packaged 4-ounce container of it for a very reasonable $5.29). (. . .) but nothing compared to the $15.99 a pound that the wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano. . ."

4oz x 4= 16oz aka, a pound, so $5.29 for 4ox x 4 = $21.16 vs. $8.99 or $15.99 for P-R

Love the article.
 
Michael S. October 19, 2015
The cultures added to butter aren't the reason why there's more butterfat in European-style cultured butter. It's the laws that determine the butterfat level in butter.

Here in the US, there is a law that states it must be 80% minimum. Same in Europe (CODEX standard), but they EXPECT it to be around 82%, which is why "European-style" has generally higher butterfat than American butter.
 
Ann-Marie D. October 15, 2015
I realize there are lots of city dwellers, but surely when you´re off to visit your family or others in the suburbs, you must try to sneak into a Costco. As someone already said, huge bags of nuts galore including pinenuts and walnuts are under $20. And they will last you for 1/2 a year or more. Everything is worth buying in small quantities to get those unique flavors that they each give (a tin of anchovies should last you 2-3 dishes) - not every day, but when you want to have good flavor for a good meal.
 
Lindsay October 15, 2015
Buying vanilla beans in bulk is a great way to go! In my experience, they're much better quality as well. You can get a lb of them for about $60. That's about 100 beans. Split them with a friend and you're good to go. I store them in a big jar of vodka, so I have vanilla extract too!
 
Nathalie D. October 15, 2015
I agree about the dried tomatoes. Making them yourself does take forever and I do wonder how much it costs in terms of the energy used by an oven that is switched on for several hours, albeit on low...
 
Drew October 15, 2015
Did you just say that the price difference between Parmesan and Parmigiano-Reggiano comes down to official decrees over naming rights?! Au contraire! Taste them side by side and you will know exactly where that extra money went!
 
Betsey October 15, 2015
Oh and World Market has very reasonably priced spices, vanilla beans among them.
 
Betsey October 15, 2015
Target's Simply Balanced brand has really cheap dried Montmorency cherries. Like REALLY cheap.
 
Liane October 15, 2015
All of these items are available and less expensive at Trader Joes (they may not carry vanilla beans, though). Best store ever
 
MarieGlobetrotter October 15, 2015
The price of these items also very per item. I mean crème fraîche, artichoke hearts (which are very popular in France, for example), parmesan and even dried nuts (especially walnuts) really don't cost as much in countries like France and Belgium where I grew up and regularly go back to. The most astonishing thing is dairy products, like milk, yogurt and cheese. So much more expensive here is Canada even though they are basic products (especially milk), not fancy ones that you can go without if you are on a tight budget. So it's also a tax/market thing.You can find mozzarella, mascarpone and ricotta for 2 euros.
 
freesumpin October 15, 2015
While I understand exactly what you're talking about, you think prices are high in the USA?
I'm an ex-pat from So Cal and am amazed at the prices here in Australia - very expensive, many items twice or more as much - or more! And where a six-pack of common beer may cost $19 and a fifth of cheap vodka $29!
But then the minimum wage here is above $18/hr, folks are given and encouraged to take 4-6 weeks of vacation time a year (and do!), and medical care is FREE,
So I'll remember the low low prices in the States and take the higher prices here - plus higher social values for individuals here. And listen to the complaints there.
I suppose it all depends on your point of view, eh mate?
 
MarieGlobetrotter October 15, 2015
Exactly, that's what I meant about this post. It just depends on the country. I'm not sure about prices in the US since I live in Canada but I know that items such as dairy products or alcohol are cheaper in Europe. But certain meats, fish and vegetables are much cheaper (and easier to find) here, it simply depends where you live
 
Leticia M. October 15, 2015
Truffles and truffle salt. We have a fantastic local grocer (HEB) that carries them when they're in season at a fairly reasonable price, but understanding the truffle's intricacy in harvesting and importing justifies the cost. I know we have a few farmers in the US whom are working on growing them but until their efforts and product are perfected, I'll pay whatever necessary (or save up for it) to have my expensive little shroom.
 
Matthew July 9, 2016
Morel mushrooms are another expensive shroom. I saw them for $40/lb today.
 
Anna D. October 15, 2015
It's very easy to make your own almond butter. I buy raw almonds from Costco, roast them on a baking sheet and throw them in the food processor. That's it.
 
FinVoilaQuoi October 15, 2015
Same here.
 
sjo October 14, 2015
I'm with PJ Tipsy. This is an absolutely silly and totally tone deaf column. Two hundred dollars for two days would be a fortune to most of the planet's inhabitants.
 
Sara I. October 15, 2015
You make a great point--$200 in two days is a lot of grocery money. Originally I wrote that I had that much with 10 days until my next paycheck. That is far less to spend on groceries and whatever other expenses may arise over a week and a half. I apologize if, in the end. I conveyed tone deafness. That was never my intention.
 
Betsey October 15, 2015
This is a blog about food in the Western world. Scolding the author about how she chooses to spend her money is what is tone deaf. GMAFB.
 
sjo October 15, 2015
I do apologize for jumping in with unnecessary snark. Even as I was writing I suspected that the $200 was not just for groceries.
 
Smaug October 14, 2015
Try Trader Joes for nuts and dried fruit- not that expensive. Almonds are the largest user of water in California, which grows something like 90% of the world's supply, so the drought has really pushed the price up. Walnuts also had some sort of specific problem, don't know what, this season. Bulk bins in nuts are generally replenished from huge, prepackaged bags from the back room which also may have been in storage for a while. Vanilla paste from Sur La Table, which contains seeds, and is more flavorful than any extract. Not cheap, nor is Reggiano, but well worth it even to a cheapskate like me. If I had $200 to last two days, I'd consider myself wealthy- certainly I'd blow for some good cheese.