ShopSmart Finds Precut Fruits & Veggies Often Sold At Premium Prices
By Jim Donovan: Precut fresh fruits, veggies, and meats may help get dinner on the table faster, but the markups on these can be huge.
The June 2015 issue of ShopSmart, from Consumer Reports, uncovered how much more shoppers will pay for 12 ready-to-cook items versus their unprepped counterparts including onions and green beans, which pre-cut, cost 370 and 192 percent more respectively.
"Unless you are really strapped for time, there's little reason to pay enormous premiums on most pre-prepped, fresh grocery items," said Lisa Lee Freeman, editor-in-chief of ShopSmart. "However we found some items that may be worth the cost."
While the time vs. money trade-off may be appealing, shoppers may find the price premiums on some foods surprising. The prices listed are per-pound averages based on national statistics; the unprepped prices are for whole produce.
Here are some examples from the full list featured in the ShopSmart's June issue, on newsstands now:
• Potatoes. Pre-wrapped and oven-ready, spuds cost about $3.11 versus unprepped potatoes which cost about $1.26 per pound – a 147 percent difference. And encasing them in foil or plastic at home takes only seconds.
• Pineapple. Shoppers will pay 55 percent more for pre-cut pineapple, $4.28 vs. 2.75 per pound. But the investment may be worth it because cutting a whole pineapple can take a while.
• Kale. Washing and taking the stems off can be tedious, so it may be worth paying the 317 percent markup for kale that has already been washed and trimmed.
• Broccoli florets. Precut, they actually cost about 12 percent less than whole broccoli because a lot of the waste is eliminated from the stalks that get cut off and tossed. But those who like to eat the stalks will get an even better deal buying the whole head of broccoli which cost about 50 percent less per pound than florets