Safeway - Lucerne Shredded Cheese

Safeway has Lucerne Shredded Cheese 32 oz on sale for $5.99 thru Tuesday, November 11, 2008.

Cheese is one of those products that economists always like to analyze. After all, somewhere near Denver there is reportedly a cave full of surplus cheese that has been detained so as to not shift dairy market prices. (Seriously, I am not trying to be weird. I learned about this cheese cave my freshman year in Introduction to Food and Resource Economics.) Yet, there are thousands of non-cheese purchasing people across the country that could benefit from the calcium and nutrition of the cheese. But, perhaps a full debate of the intricacies of cheese economics is best saved for another day. Nonetheless, I do desire to share my own personal micro-level reflection on cheese economics.

For the past decade or so I have never even bothered to walk down the cheese aisle as I had no interest in buying cheese. For the most part, cheese hadn't been part of my meals growing up. I can vaguely recall cheese being served in meals while I was in elementary school, but during in my middle school years I likely banned it from my diet for fat content reasons. Then in college I began to be introduced to other people's eating habits and realized that cheese brought life to numerous simple meals such as baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, salads and chili. Suddenly, I started to develop a tolerance for small quantities of cheese and as this tolerance increased I decided that shredded cheese could be part of my diet to aid me in keeping my new year's resolution of meeting my daily calcium requirements. (After all, I had run out of calcium supplements that I gotten for free from drugstores.)

At the same time, the price of cheese remained a concern. In my shopping adventures, I noted that the typical 8 oz bag of cheese sells for an average of $2.50 and that this price doesn't fit well into my budget. But, then reflecting on past debates about whether it is cheaper to buy shredded cheese or shred your own, I knew that larger bags are generally the best way to go and spotted a 32 oz bag for $4.99. It doesn't take an advanced mathematician to quickly realize that the 8 cup bag of cheese is a better value than the 2 cup bag of shredded cheese as to get the same amount of cheese in 8 oz increments would cost $10.00 instead of $4.99. It is easy to see how the difference in price multiplied by any length of time can result in either a huge savings or substantial added cost. I could regularly find the large bag of cheese on sale at this price. However, then I moved across the country to an urban area and I had to learn supermarket prices all over again. Luckily, Safeway had a comparable brand of cheese at the same price. But, then I moved across town away from a Safeway. For a couple of months, I had a hard time finding cheese that I could afford. None of the competing stores had cheese anywhere near the same price, so I went thru cheese withdraws. I ate plain salads and potatoes, longing for some cheese. Every time I would get extra money for groceries, I would think great this is cheese money. Then I moved back to the rural area that first got me hooked on cheese. Initially, I thought my cheese famine days would be over as I could go back to the same store and buy the cheese at the same price. Wrong-o. I soon discovered that price of my cheese had been hiked signifcantly to a point where there was nearly no discount in buying the large bag. I couldn't believe it. The best price I have ever seen cheese at since last fall is $5.99 for 32 oz at Safeway and while common this price isn't nearly as regular as it used to be as well as periodically Walgreens has Deerfield Cheese on sale for $1.50.