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DEL.ICIO.USAt 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
Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment | Categories: Groceries
Comments
By Cathy
June 17, 2008 2:08 PM | Link to this
Whenever I’m at a grocery store, i.e. Target, Publix, etc., I look for the discountinued or clearance items in the freezer “clearance” section. Usually, I can buy entire meals for less than $2.00. Just add a salad or baked potato and you have a complete meal for less than a dollar per serving.
By Josh
June 17, 2008 2:42 PM | Link to this
I always look for the best date on bread. There is nothing better in this world than a slice of fresh bread.
By malika
June 17, 2008 4:03 PM | Link to this
i have no problem buying the clearanced hotdog and hamburger buns and bread. we’ve been barbecuing since it got hot and rather than spend three dollars on hotdog and hamburger buns that will be finished in a few days, i spend the dollar in the sale section. food is too expensive to be picky these days. half the time once you put all of the fixings on a sandwich, u can’t even tell that the bread is a few days old.
By leon
June 17, 2008 5:25 PM | Link to this
Been buying day old since the sixties,yes it has been with us that long. They also carry other baked goods at reduced prices.These products also freeze well if you have a freezer.We usually keep snack cakes and 4-5 loaves of bread. Beats paying $2-$3 a loaf and $1.19 for Twinkies. Try it and save!
By Never in Dunwoody
June 17, 2008 9:33 PM | Link to this
We don’t eat day old bread in Dunwoody. When my bread gets more than a day old, I throw it away and go to the bakery for more.
I’ve tried to buy bread in Kroger and Publix and it’s just awful. When I’m there I squeeze every loaf so hard that it’s too deformed to ever make a decent sandwich. Sometimes I’ve had to stand there for 10 minutes squeezing every single loaf before I’m convinced they are just not up to my freshness standard.
One time my husband brought home bread from Kroger and not only was it at least 2 days old, the poor loaf had been squeezed so many times it wasn’t fit to give to the ducks in the pond down at The Club, much less make a sandwich with.
By jondoe
June 18, 2008 12:20 AM | Link to this
It takes a long time for processed bread to go bad - but it is never that good to begin with. I buy ‘old’ bread by the cart load and feed it to the geese on our lake. They don’t seem to mind. My breadmaker makes a 2 pound loaf for 20 cents… and it tastes and feels like real bread.
By ron
June 18, 2008 8:25 AM | Link to this
Buy Bread? I make my own. It’s not good practice to feed bread to birds.There is not enough nutrition of the sort birds need.They fill up on bread and can’t eat the right stuff.
By Ergot or Not?
June 18, 2008 9:39 AM | Link to this
There are so many preservatives in mass-produced bread that it lasts practically forever. I’m still making sandwiches from a loaf of sourdough I bought back in May and there’s no sign of mold or spoilage on it. Now, be careful with old rye bread - the mold that grows on it is “ergot”, a hallucinogen that is the parent of LSD. Groovy, man.
By Noelle
June 18, 2008 2:10 PM | Link to this
I don’t buy bread often (and nearly always whole-grain when I do), so I don’t worry too much about how much I spend on it. I’d spend more in gas driving to an outlet store anyway.
One thing I’ve started doing is making bread at home using the no-knead bread recipe published in the New York Times last year. It takes very little time or effort, and it makes a very good loaf of bread. Plus it’s a lot cheaper than bakery bread, even day-old!
By AtlantaGal
June 18, 2008 3:38 PM | Link to this
I shop the Manager’s Specials section in the bakery department at Kroger. I’ve found loaves of 12-grain bread that usually cost $1.69 (which is about as cheap as you’ll find a whole grain bread that tastes good) for 85 cents. I got three loaves and froze two.
I store my bread in the refrigerator so it will keep fresh longer. Sure, warm bread is the best, but I usually make sandwiches or toast, so it doesn’t matter too much.
By Vivien
June 19, 2008 8:28 AM | Link to this
Noelle - can you post that no-knead bread recipe?
By FCM
June 19, 2008 10:10 AM | Link to this
I always look for the discontinued type sales things…like another poster said the freezer is full of them. The Marietta Flowers store has been there decades…I remember shopping there with my Mom.
Put the bread in the fridge (especially in summer) and you can use it about a week past the sell by. Also, the artisan breads last longer in the fridge. I bought a loaf of bakery fresh sourdough the other day at Publix…2 days later it was a science project (I didn’t have it in the fridge). I have been buying my bread at Trader Joe’s lately. Not bakery fresh that day like Publix, but no preservatives and with things like Flax seed it’s healthier…plus the texture is better in the TJ bread.
By mp
June 19, 2008 12:49 PM | Link to this
I go to the bread store once a month and buy a months worth of bread and freeze it it has saved me much money over the years although recently the price have almost doubled its gone form 50 a loaf to 1$ but its still so worth it
By elee1296
June 19, 2008 10:42 PM | Link to this
FCM, do you ever freeze bread? I hear that refrigerating adds moisture, which can make the bread taste stale, but that freezing avoids that problem.
By Frugalmom
June 27, 2008 1:31 PM | Link to this
Standard store bread will keep perfectly well in the freezer for several months. Pull it out several hours before you plan to make sandwiches, place on counter and allow to thaw in the wrapper. (For baked goods this is OK.) This method preserves the texture.
By Daddy
August 21, 2008 12:11 PM | Link to this
We get about 100 loaves of various kinds of day old bread/buns for $5 at the local Wonder bread outlet. They call it “animal feed”. We keep about 15 loaves of specialty breads and give the rest away or feed the ducks/birds etc. Anyway you slice it, it’s a bargain.