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Tuesday, June 17, 2008
At bakery outlets, fresh bread and hot deals
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I love bargains. While 99 percent of Americans toss out coupon circulars, I clip away. (Only for products I’d buy anyway.) If there’s a stock-up sale, I’ll buy and store.
Still, it seems like my family of four spends a lot of money on food. With gas prices rising, we’ve been pulling out grocery receipts, cable bills, Netflix subscriptions and other things we’ve taken for granted, and looking for ways to make up for the extra $60 a week that’s going into the gas tank.
So a few weeks ago, I stopped at a shop I’ve driven past many times: The Discount Bakery Store. Most people just call it the day-old bread store. Flowers Industries, which operates several of these in metro Atlanta, makes familiar labels like Cobblestone, Nature’s Own, Roman Meal and Captain John Derst. The shelves are stocked with sandwich bread, burger and hot dog buns, English muffins and bagels. And deals.
Day-old bread once meant slightly stale, good for bread crumbs, croutons and thickening soups, but not for eating. That’s still the case with artisan breads made without preservatives.
But for the bread most of us eat, the sandwich loaves that come with a two-week date on the bag, being a day old is no big deal. Neither is being a week out of the oven, for that matter. And that’s what I usually find at the discount store. The bread may have four or five days left before it reaches the sell-by date printed on the bag, and with four of us packing lunches, there’s no question we’ll finish the loaf before then.
The bread can be eaten until four days past the sell-by date, says Mary Krier, a spokeswoman for Flowers.
A loaf of Nature’s Own 100 percent whole wheat costs $1.19 at the discount store. It costs as much as $2.69 at the grocery store. At a warehouse store, the cost works out to about $2.15 a loaf (you’ve got to buy two loaves at most warehouse clubs).
If you’re having a cookout, the savings really add up. Sometimes shoppers pick up as many as 500 hot dog buns — make sure to call ahead to check supply.
Flowers is reluctant to talk about their outlets, and wouldn’t tell me how many they have in metro Atlanta for competitive reasons, Krier says. But it’s simple enough to look them up in the phone book, where they’re listed under Flowers Bakery Outlets, Flowers Baking Co. and Flowers Bakery Thrift Stores. If you’re not sure whether it’s a distribution center or an outlet, call and ask. Sometimes they’re both in the same place.
Marietta, as it turns out, is a hot spot for bakery outlets. A few blocks from the Flowers store at 136 Powers Ferry Road S.E. is the Entenmann’s bakery outlet at 1611 Roswell Road N.E. It’s the only one listed in metro Atlanta on the George Weston Bakeries web site.
Weston also makes familiar brands, including Thomas English muffins and bagels, Arnold breads and Entenmann’s pastries. At the outlet, all are half-off or more.
I picked up a Boboli full-size pizza crust, originally priced at $4.39, for $1.95, four days before the sell-by date on the package. Full-size Entenmann’s crumb cakes were $2, down from $5.50. A loaf of Arnold 100 Percent Whole Wheat was $1.60, and a week before its sell-by date. There were also party packs of eight mini-Boboli crusts, with pizza sauce, perfect for a make-your-own birthday celebration for children.
Have you found a great place to save money on food? Or a place that offers good markdowns on breads or perishables before closing? For more tips on saving money on groceries, check out these tips elsewhere on Evening Edge
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