The Food Scout

I’m still recovering from the shockwaves I felt in my wallet this weekend. No not gasoline, but food. I just decided not to think about the $3.35 per gallon price tag when I fueled up, even though a month ago I was paying $2.79 a gallon. That’s probably because I’d been driving around for days (on a tank of $3.05 gas) watching the price go up to $3.15, then $3.25 and even $3.35 in places. So I’d been bracing for the hit at the pump.

My sadness came when I stopped by Papa Murphy’s to pick up 3 pizzas that, after coupons, would have cost about $19 (a ridiculously cheap price if you compare to the delivery chains). But instead the bill came to $25. So I looked up at the menu board, and lo and behold my $5.99 cheese pizza was now $7.99. That’s a 33% increase in one month!

Now, because I’m in the food industry, I know full well why this has happened. But I decided to play dumb consumer and start questioning the poor pizza boy about the reason for the sudden jump. He lamented how the cost of flour and cheese had raised their costs by thousands of dollars a month, and that they hadn’t made a menu price increase in several years, so they had no choice. Oh, but $2 a pizza in so short of time, I asked. Couldn’t you raise them slowly over a couple of months to break us in? Evidently not.

So as a consumer, I drove home lamenting the loss of super-cheap pizzas that I baked at home as I drove by gas stations and looked at my fuel gauge, which was approaching “Empty” faster than I had anticipated. But as a food consultant, let me just say that I think this was the right thing for Papa Murphy’s to do: Figure out what you need to charge to survive, make the change all at once, and apologize and empathize with the consumer profusely and explain to them patiently how expensive food commodities and fuel are getting (can we PLEASE go back to burning dinosaurs and not corn!), and hope that they understand and come back.

But my shock wasn’t over. The next morning I went to a favorite local donut shop, St. George’s, to buy a dozen donuts. To my dismay when I walked in, the menu board that previously listed the individual and bulk prices for various specialty donuts was completely void of any prices at all. Now MAYBE they haven’t had time to update the price changes, but my suspicion is that they were keeping all the prices off so it will be harder to keep track of the price increases yet to come as the weeks pass. This is the opposite of the gasoline industry’s tactic, which is to post price changes, instead of surprising you when you get to the cash register, as was the case at the donut shop. (By the way, they gave me orange donuts instead of sprinkle donuts, which I didn’t discover until I got home. So I had to waste MORE gas driving all the way back to make the exchange. It wasn’t pretty.)

Maybe restaurants should post the price of their most popular meal in a big sign like the gas stations do: Tall Latte: $3.35; Venti Latte $3.65. Or Large Cheese: $5.99. Family Cheese $7.99. Or Dozen Donuts $6.49. Then we could keep track of the ups and (if they occur) downs, and not be sticker-shocked when we finally walk in after a lapse and go to pay for the meal. Thank goodness McDonald’s is giving away FREE medium iced coffees today, or I don’t think I could get through the day.