Save Money Grocery Shopping- Try Shopping at a Salvage Grocery Stores

I read an article in the local paper the other day about the rising popularity of salvage grocery stores. Given the state of the economy, I don’t find this surprising. I have been going off and on to a salvage grocery store in my area for many years, and, although it has been a couple of years since I have been, I have always found them to be a good place to save money on grocery and food shopping.

What is a salvage grocery store?

A salvage grocery store is a store that sells “salvaged” grocery items –items where the packaging may have been damaged, or the cans dented, for example. Salvage grocery stores by these “damaged” items from a regular grocery store or food broker, and pass the savings along to you, the consumer. Some items may be excess surplus from a regular grocery store, and others may be past their expiration date. Salvage grocery stores are also known as “scratch and dent” grocery stores, for obvious reasons.

Sometimes the prices can be really good like $0.50 for ketchup or BBQ sauce, or $1.00 for cereal that comes in a damaged box. One of the neat things about them is that you never know what you are going to find there. While they usually had a lot of the basics every time I went, like canned goods and staples, there was usually a different assortment of other items which varied from from week to week, such as fruit, meat, and even alcohol, depending on what was salvaged from a regular grocery store or wholesaler.

Some of the items I have found to usually be available for really good prices include:

Staple goods- Canned goods and other pantry staples (sauces, condiments, spices, etc.) are often priced at a fraction of the normal grocery store price.

Toiletry items- such as toothpaste, bars of soap, sun tan lotion, etc.

Are the items safe from a Salvage Grocery Store?

You may find that some items are past the “sell by” or expiration date on the label, and if you are like most people, wonder if that means they are OK to eat or not. Except for infant formula and baby foods, manufacturers are not required by law to put a real “expiration date” on food items. A sell by or best if used by date on a product does not mean the product is expired, bad, or unsafe to eat, only that it may not be best quality. For more information on food dates and what they mean, visit the USDA Food Product Dating web page.

But you should use common sense- If a can is bulging at the seems, don’t’ eat it. Use the smell test and visual inspection as well, and if it looks bad or smells bad, don’t eat.

From my many visits, I have not run across anything that was too severely damaged or dented that I thought it might be bad or unsafe- it seems like they pick through the stock pretty well. Although I have never had any problems with any of the items I bought, one way to avoid any date issues is to plan on eating what you buy at a salvage grocery store right away- don’t create a stockpile in the pantry for those items, for example.

You can find some really good bargains at salvage grocery stores, although you still have to pay attention to the prices-some may not be as “discounted” as you may think. Saving money on groceries can be a big help in reducing your regular expenses, as it is usually a decent amount of household spending over the course of a month. Making an occasional trip now and then can help you trim your monthly budget, in my opinion.