Will a major grocery chain’s vow to lower produce prices actually mean savings for you?

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – How much more have you been forking out for your grocery bill these days?

One major grocery chain is now promising lower produce prices.

The price of produce has been a hot topic for months (we all remember the $8 cauliflower!). Now, Safeway is running a new ad campaign, vowing to offer lower prices on fruit and veggies. But does it actually mean savings for you?

Lindsay Meredith with SFU’s Beedie School of Business explains “loss leadering.”

“[It] simply means this: ‘I look like or perhaps I will actually cut my prices on one or two of the products. That’s going to attract you to my store, the premise being once you’re in the store, you’re going to buy a bunch of other stuff that may not be so cheap and therefore, I can make back some of the losses I took by cutting price.'”

“When everybody is wired about high prices on produce, you may, indeed, have some much lower prices on produce. And maybe [that’ll] really kill your margin, but hey, nevermind — those consumers are going to stock up on meat, other products in the store, and that’s where you really get your money back.”

The practice is fairly common and with no price-matching guarnatee, he suggests doing your own comnparisons.

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