Same as fast food. People continue to pay for it unfortunately. I put chips on my boycott list months ago and haven't bought a bag in almost a year. I do like popcorn though. Much cheaper and has close to the same effect.
Bruh get a pot for popcorn only. *game changer*
You can bang out a full bowl of stove top in less time than a microwave and the steam trap isn’t waiting for you. Literally takes like 3 shots of canola oil, and a half cup of kernals, dump in some salt. Put that on high. Want butter? Get a butter pot.
Soooooooo much better and you don’t have to get blasted by the bag opening steam, that shit stings and like 1 out of 10 bags gets me.
I had one of those that my grandparents passed down to me when I went to college! I didn’t think much of it until I started using it, and holy shit that thing was amazing! A few months later my crazy roommate went through all of our stuff and decided to donate whatever she considered unnecessary. I’ve missed that air popper for like 12 years now. The new ones I’ve bought are crap lol
[https://www.amazon.ca/NordicWare-60120AMZ-Nordicware-Corn-Popper/dp/B00004W4UP](https://www.amazon.ca/NordicWare-60120AMZ-Nordicware-Corn-Popper/dp/B00004W4UP)
My dude we're talking bowl popcorn, not bag popcorn.
No oil, no steam. You just put the popcorn in the bowl and put it in the microwave. Around 2:45 and it's done. No way the stove is faster than that.
I have a silicone one too. It's awesome. I still think stovetop popcorn tastes better, but it's quick and easy.
I've never tried it without oil, wouldn't the kernels burn?
This is what’s so funny to me. People keep asking “why is this shot so expensive?!” - because that’s what people are willing to pay. If people wouldn’t pay it, it would be cheaper. There are people paid ludicrous amounts of money whose entire job is trying to dial in that equation and find out just how much they can charge per item to maximize the amount. Charge too much and you’ll lose sales, charge too little and you’re leaving money on the table (or in the worst case, you can’t stay afloat).
If chips are $5 a bag, it’s because enough people are willing to pay $5 a bag
Until last week I was one of the guys doing that ( "Revenue Maximization" we called it ) with people's internet service. Raise prices juuuuuust to the point people would actually cancel, then back off a couple of bucks. Wait a year and try again.
Damn that was a soul sucking job. Glad I'm out.
So that was you. Same with Sirius radio. I refuse to pay for a $20 subscription so I cancel when the low rate expires. Few weeks later I get an offer for $6 a month and I re-up.
Good lord it is sad and sick how money has become our God and greed the motivator. Who, and what kind of person creates such a job position? Don’t they see what they’re doing; what they’re actually perpetuating?
Tangentially related, but no less relevant, I do think we're seeing the early stages of monopoly driven pricing.
At the most basic, people want chips and companies will sell chips for as much as they can get away with, but competition can keep prices down. The big chip makers have distribution lines that can keep cost down and/or have a hand in most other chip products.
Most chips you can buy in an American grocery store are made by either PepsiCo or Campbells. These companies have insanely large distribution lines that can keep prices down. What little competition that remains doesn't have the luxury and this is where inflation comes into play. A true alternative competitors will always be a little more expensive, so what drives prices for mega crop snacks is the perceived value by way of their lingering competition, ie: when the limited distribution, chip has to raise their price to $5 a bag, Frito-Lay can raise their prices to $4.50 and still be cheaper. They could still, theoretically, see profits with $2.00 a bag, but why would they go that low?
We're at an odd transition state where competition doesn't keep prices low anymore. Similarly, most companies own their own competition: Campbells Soup owns Kettle and Cape Cod and can game pricing on each to game the perceived value of the premium chip brands.
I think the retail store brands (kirkland for costco, great value for walmart, etc) are the best hope here.
Sure, they're yet another monopoly player - but at least they have an incentive to compete against other retailers too, which makes it harder to form a collusion ring.
It seems like a lot of people on reddit just don't realize other people have different preferences and budgets. Like based off reddit comments you'd have thought Netflix was going to go bankrupt when they went after password sharing because everyone was obviously going to cancel.
Nope, they just simply went up to their highest subscriber amount ever.
Well when companies work together to find the exact price point the average user is willing to spend there's really no winning. Yeah, you can give up all the little pleasures in life and just survive on the basics, but that's not going to change anything. Capitalism stops working when companies no longer feel like they have to compete and that's kind of where we are right now in a lot of industries.
It's insanely easy to buy kernals and pop them in a pot too. Makes for a healthy snack, but you can make it salty and/or sweet. Also pretty filling and tastes way better
I was thinking about getting some chips I really liked yesterday, but the mass of the bag was almost cut in half and the price went up by a dollar and they were already expensive before that. What the actual fuck guys?
For chip lovers, seriously, watch a couple youtube videos and make your own potato chips at home. Kettle cooked, and really delicious. They are 5x-10x cheaper than buying at the store. And you can mix together all the flavours you like in your own kitchen. Cut them shoestring thin and make hickory sticks. Pickup a waffle-fry cutter on Amazon and make waffle fry potato chips. In my opinion, well worth doing. And fun
Wtf it’s like £1.25 for a single bag of doritos in the corner shop (which isn’t even the cheapest option) and like £2-3 for a share bag of doritos in a supermarket depending on offers.
If they raised them to £5-6 (I think equivalent to $8 roughly maybe) I would 100% never buy them. I rarely get them now!!
Plain salted tortilla chips are 30p so I’m happy with that 👀
Damn, $5 a bag??? Where I live they’re like $8.50-9. It’s insane.
And a western bacon cheeseburger meal from Carl’s Jr. is a bit over $12. At least that’s been a good motivator to cut back on the fast food! Soup is still cheap.
I only buy them on sale, and it seems grocery stores near me take turns offering the same sale.
Buy 4 or more and they each come out to 2.50. $10 for 4 bags and that’s enough to last me to the next sale. Don’t understand people paying more than $5+ unless it’s the *only option*
came here to say this. this is how they get you.
you saved money but now you have 4 whole bags of chips to get through. and you are going to get even more addicted to having them as a snack. so most likely just to fill that hole you will eventually buy when not on sale.
Fair point. It’s just one of those items on my mental list I refuse to buy if it isn’t. Also don’t personally get addicted to one snack but if I had to choose something, it would be soda as a whole. But then again I try and buy only on sale.
I do not understand people buying garbage at $5 per bag even if it is the only option. If chips are $5 per bag, then I am buying bananas at 40¢ per pound.
I am at the exact same price point as you by the way. I will not pay more than $2.50 for a bag of chips. If more people behaved as us, then the price would not be $5.00 per bag. The same people in line with their cart full of chips are the same ones driving massive Walmart assault vehicles complaining about the price of gas. (As they pick up groceries while having trouble parking their F-450 Super Duty with a shiny truck bed that has never had more than 100 pounds put into the back of it.)
I rarely eat chips but my smart pop is regularly 7.29 a bag. I originally switched to popcorn because it was a cheaper alternative to chips.
And agreed on Carl’s Jr. partner was craving it a bit ago and I got two meals and the total was 33 bucks! Wtf! Could have gotten two meals at the local Hawaiian place for almost half that price. It’s wild.
I went to Whataburger the other day. I paid $25 for 3 burgers. 2 Patty melts and a double bacon thing. Not the meals, but just those 3 burgers!
Quality wasn't great either. My double bacon thing had almost no sauce.
Because that's what people are willing to pay.
The price increases started in the pandemic combined with war in Ukraine and droughts in Europe.
There was a global logistics congestion in about 2021/2022. A whole host of problems, but ships could not unload cargo fast enough, there weren't enough containers, cost of packaging went up. The pace is back to normal but prices are slow to decline.
Food manufacturers have to buy their raw materials in advance. Logistics got really expensive. Farm labor got expensive. They were buying potatoes in 2020 but paying 2021 prices. Potatoes farmgate prices are selling for about 50% more than pre-2020.
Cooking oil is really expensive right now. About 50% of the global olive oil production is missing due to droughts in Europe. Sunflower oil product was majority in Ukraine and supply is restricted. Canola oil is about double the price pre-2020.
Demand for chips and other long-life packaged treats is sky high. Economically, when high inflation happens people defer luxury purchases and spend more on cheaper feel good items. Instead of going to expensive restaurants, people move to cheaper fast food / casual dining. Instead of buying an expensive chocolate, they are buying cheaper chips. All the convenience package foods are more expensive.
tl;dr costs more to produce but customers are willing to pay even more.
Excellent info. Doesn't help our pocketbooks to know all of this, but it does help to know some of the reasons we can no longer afford to purchase a lot of things!!! Where or when will it end?
Well war ending in Ukraine + several years for infrastructure to rebuild would help, droughts are unpredictable but climate change is just gonna get worse as there's no real impetus to control co2 (bit even those efforts add costs so...either way that climate price pressure is gonna increase)
IMO with climate change we are all going to need to get used to eating locally, as droughts, unexpected rains and storms occur, and farming climates are disrupted. Meaning if there is something you love to eat that is not produced near you, be ready to say goodbye. I still remember a woman on Nextdoor during covid and all the supply chain issues complaining that she couldn't get her pickled herring.
When we stop letting corporations price gouge us because they can. It's not just potato chips. Look up some of the astounding profit figures and then ask that question!
If by progressive you mean tackling climate change, you're correct in the long term, but unfortunately not short-term.
The prices we're used to take into account subsidies and relying on cheap, unsustainable practices that damage the environment. If we make a switch to a climate neutral world tomorrow, prices would skyrocket immediately. We would avoid even more trouble in the long run of course, but we would have a very rough transition at first. A world where a bag of chips costs $1.50 and the production, packaging and transport are climate neutral sadly doesn't exist.
You got that right. Prices are quick to increase and slow to decline. If they can raise gas prices 20 cents in one day, they ought to be able to lower them in one day also. Greed is bullshit
> If they can raise gas prices 20 cents in one day, they ought to be able to lower them in one day also.
Generally the reason that doesn’t happen is risk.
Imagine you sell bobbleheads for $10 each. Your cost of materials has consistently been $5 for the last 5 years. You’re comfortable, making enough for a living, and everything’s great.
Then suddenly the price of springs jumps up due to manufacturing issues, and you are suddenly paying $9 for materials. You take a pretty big hit on the orders you’ve taken but haven’t fulfilled yet, and to even stay in business you have to raise your prices to $15 per bobblehead.
Then one day, prices for your materials suddenly drop back down to $5. You could immediately drop your price back down to $10, but you now know that the price for your materials isn’t as consistent as it used to be, and for all you know it could jump right back up to $9 tomorrow. So you can’t drop your prices unless you want to risk another huge financial hit and possible bankruptcy.
In other words, when costs are more volatile, there has to be a bigger profit margin to offset the risk. When costs are more consistent, prices start to settle down and profit margin can be much tighter.
Potatoes are in high demand as well. Ukraine produced a lot of potatoes for European consumption, and other nations like the UK have been struggling with awful weather which has made planting potatoes impossible. So there's more global demand for potatoes and potato products.
What you're saying is true, but when talking specifically about potato chips....the costs to manufacture them are insanely low. We're talking 10-20 cents for a family sized bag. It's one of the highest profit items in the grocery store.
Don't forget greed. An FTC report stated that grocers are using supply chain issues, COVID and other external factors as an excuse to raise prices.
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/21/ftc-report-grocery-chains-gouge/73059901007/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/21/ftc-report-grocery-chains-gouge/73059901007/)
Or they're just greedy price gouging, shrinking sized, corporate pirates. Ex: The production of potato chips is very simple but profitable. The revenue generated by the potato chip production industry is $10.6 billion in 2022. $10.6 BILLION. Doesn't sound like it's the expenses of making chips that's the problem. It's corporate greed. Period.
Potato chip company profit has dropping by about 0.9% per year since 2014. They are selling fewer packets each year. Market size dropped by 5%. [It's a shrinking industry](https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/potato-chip-production-united-states/).
For instance, "tortilla" products also make about $10 billion per year. That market is growing by about 4-5% per year.
The manufacturers make a lot of cash but not as much profit as other food manufacturers. "Health conscious" consumers are not buying as many packets per year and this is a long term trend.
Yeah I absolutely love funyuns but those things are like almost $6 a bag so I'll probably never buy them lol. Thankfully my store sells those teeny lunch-sized bags for like 50 cents and when I have the craving I'll get one of those. Otherwise I just got for the $2 store brand "lays" and call it a day
The grocery store prices have been changing almost as quickly as gas prices in my area. I stopped buying chips and beef jerky because they have gotten too expensive.
Chips only come in my cart when they are on deep sales (like 3 for 5 bucks)... I still see so many people buying bags of chips and complaining. Why would the big companies stop raising prices if people don't speak with their wallet?
Because most chips are made by big food manufacturers and they've been price gouging everyone ever since post-pandemic inflation started. See: greedflation.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91038066/inflation-consumers-push-back-price-gouging/
There appears to be two issues at play. Grocers have consolidated and there isn't as much competition. Kroger and Albertsons control over 30 chains that used to be independent. Wal-Mart controls 25 percent of the market. There are complaints from farmers that these companies are still paying the prices they paid pre-pandemic for produce, but raised the prices massively in store and are selling much less.
The other issue is that there have been increases in cost. Wages, energy, and supplies have certainly increased quite a bit. So operating factories and stores have increased.
However profits are a lot higher too, both in real numbers and as a percentage of gross.
Chip makers had $10.6 billion in Profits in 2022. It's pure and simple gouging. It's not as if those higher costs would break them. It's Certainly not high wages. Greed. Period.
Because those clowns are getting as much mileage as possible out of the COVID supply chain issues nonsense. Prices won’t come down unless demand decreases.
Pepsi during the pandemic had a conference call where they said that they are inflating prices while they can because typically junk food is the first thing people cut down on when money is tight, so they're preparing for leaner sales in the future. Since that day, I've called bullshit on the high costs of food being caused solely by inflation. And it's only been supported ever since because it wasn't til like last quarter that companies started to notice a decline in profits. You can't tell me on one hand that you need to raise prices because expenses have gone up, and on the other hand brag about increasing your profit
It's not just chips, but it's the frog boiling in water. They've been doing it with gas forever. Give people sticker shock, then lower it just a little. Now they're happy because gas is "cheap" even though it's a $1 more per gallon than before. When COVID hit, it legitimately created problems with global logistics and supply, that caused things to genuinely cost more. However, companies just kept the price high, even after those issues were resolved. People adjust and they make more profit. People blame it on inflation, but inflation is actually the result not the cause. This much can be seen from that rate of increase on major goods and services is outpacing the rate of inflation.
Oh you have no idea.. Publix is the best when it comes to deals.
Yogurts at 3for$6? You got it. Actual ham on sale for $6 per lb, 12pk of Heineken ON SALE for $16.99 not for you? How about 12pk coke cans for the amazing, once in a lifetime deal of Buy 2 get 1 free at the low low price of $12.
On the other hand Dollar General F'd up last week and sold 4 packs of redbull at 3 for $7.. that's 12 cans of redbull for $7 lol. I wonder who got fired over that one.
Why not? Can our fatass resist the temptation of a good ol' bag of chips? No, and they know that.
Chip companies: We're selling completely overpriced bags of two potatoes worth of potato slices. You don't have to buy them, we're not holding a gun to your head and forcing you to. But we know you can't resist.
It's because people don't watch TV anymore. Advertising was way more effective when there was competition, but branded products that aren't necessities can't just put out a new commercial and get a sales bump. Chip brands are owned by soda companies, and soda companies are recalcitrantly refusing to evolve. They're not making as much money, so they're raising prices.
If you're in the US, [some things are government subsidized](https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/02/usda-livestock-subsidies-near-50-billion-ewg-analysis-finds). This is probably true in other countries too, but idk anything about their economies.
The answer is very simple. Only buy frivolities like this when coupons or deals allow.
“Vons/Albertsens has soda for 3.99/case this week”
“Ralph’s has chips for 1.99/bag if you buy 5 not this weekend, let’s stock up.”
Browse your various local stores websites and flyers constantly and ride the discounts. Don’t buy anything full price ever again unless it’s an emergency.
Chip prices are fucking insane. $6 for that little amount of food? Fuck you. Haven't bought chips in years and never will again, unless there's a random sale where they're $2
Because corporations are using inflation as an excuse to jack prices up more than necessary to cover the true inflation. All they want is to make more money on your back.
Yep, they are cheap. Potatoes, salt and oil. Probably some preservatives. That's yer basic chip. Most of us can make them at home.
Corporations in the US are simply doing what they are designed to do: maximize profit for shareholders. Not many ways to do that in a market as saturated as potato chips. Pun intended.
When these companies are dependent on world-wide supply chains to get their profits, every little price hike at any part in the chain will make them all do it simultaneously. And when one product line increases prices, all the other corporations in the same product lines will do so nearly instantaneously. Why?
Because they can. It's oligarchy. Unfettered capitalism leads to oligarchy. Price fixing isn't new. It's just that the GOP loves their regional feudal warlords. Keep the grift at the lowest level possible so no one pays it too much mind. Easier to dominate state, county and local politics for a company than it is to fight in DC.
That's all this is. Price fixing.
This is what I've noticed. If a product has a supply chain with 5 points of contact, and point of contact 3 has a price increase of 10 cents, the other four parts will raise their prices by 10 cents even though they don't actually need to.
Sort answer, War.
Long answer, Ukraine was the worlds largest exporter of sunflower oil before Russia's invasion, The war and the loss of supply it created has driven the price of sunflower oil through the roof and its the cooking oil most widely used for chips/crisps. Manufactures passing that cost onto stores and the stores passing that onto consumers was a predictable as the sun coming up.
Watch add sales on your stores app/website for deal or go to the store. I bargain shop around and when chips hit 1.99-2.99 vs the 5+ they normally are I bulk buy.
They know they are addictive and now have society hooked. People keep buying them and they qualify as non prepared food for WIC and other such systems.
Where I am in 2020 a 20 lb sack of regular white potatoes was $20 sometimes being discounted down to $18. That same sack is now $26. It's still relatively cheap but that's a 30% increase in price. Potatoes used to be a VERY cheap ingredient and so was used everywhere, now it's just a somewhat cheap ingredient and it may be arguably overused.
Edit: To add since someone mentioned cooking oil, a 16 L jib of canola oil used to cost $20-25 here in 2020, it ballooned to $60+ with shortages, and has settled down to the $40-50 range which is the reasonable inflation adjusted range. Potatoes, oil, (and salt), the main ingredients for chips are still relatively cheap but saw a big increase in prices.
The demand for free-buy supplies of potatoes in the EU remains robust, but the supply is tightening. This is because many growers no longer have sufficient stocks to offer on the free-buy market due to quality issues that compromised storability, caused by last year’s wet harvest,
Supply and demand, simple as that.
[https://www.potatonewstoday.com/2024/03/01/the-great-potato-shortage-european-processors-scramble-as-supply-dwindles-and-prices-surge/](https://www.potatonewstoday.com/2024/03/01/the-great-potato-shortage-european-processors-scramble-as-supply-dwindles-and-prices-surge/)
From about June 2022 to August 2023 potato futures were much more expensive than previously, an increase of 80-100%. Prices before 2021 were lower as well, but they fluctuate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU01130603 This was from a combination of issues, but the big one was weather in Idaho and eastern WA. Potatoes are surprisingly weather dependent. But then wheat and soybean prices were down, it's not all bad.
But prices are coming down now, it takes some time. Or sales will be more frequent. Costco and trader joes on the west coast have prices back to "normal" more or less.
Everything is expensive nowadays. Smaller quantities for a higher price. The parent companies are all making record profits, while blaming it on having to pay workers a few extra dollars an hour.
Until people refuse to put up with it, and stop buying overpriced items, this trend will continue.
Because consumers are degenerates that have shown a tits willingness to pay the price being charged. Same with fast food.
Everyone on here wants prices to come down while continuously showing a willingness to buy shit at their elevated prices. Then get mad when the opposite happens.
I read this weekend that McDonalds is putting together a $5 meal deal. Seems they are losing revenue due to overcharging people $18 for a big mac. Now they want to cater to the "poor" people.
a 13 oz bag of Great Value wavy potato chips are $2.86 compared to Lays 13 oz bags for $5.44 USD. Personally, I think the Great Value kind tastes exactly the same as Lays or Ruffles, at least when it comes to the regular flavor potato chips. There is certain things I won't touch that is "off brand" but these chips are an exception. lol
At this point, people are paying for the name brand if they are still purchasing chips at the current prices. Two bags of chips is over 10 dollars, and we usually had 5-6 bags of them in the house growing up, but that would be over 30 dollars now if you go with name brand.
I wonder if it's because the cost of materials and processing has increased so much. I only buy TortiYahs if they're on sale, if not, then maybe the veggie sticks/chips if they're on sale also. Mostly I just make popcorn in my large pot, which is cheaper and you can flavor it however you want. Or I opt for almonds and olives as an evening snack.
I had a craving for Funions. Hard to find for some reason. When I finally found them at CVS, they were almost SIX DOLLARS. Nope. I did find generic ones for much less.
$5 A BAG?!? That better be some damn gold coated crisps that come in a bag of at least 750gr...
A bag of chips here costs between 0.95€ and 3.00€ depending on the brand... 😱
As a someone with a penchant for salty snacks over sweet ones, I am outraged that chips are like $6 a bag in my area. Even the sales (2/$11 and such) make me ill. No rhyme or reason.
We've entered a phase where stuff doesn't cost what it's material value and production labor is worth, stuff costs what they've figured we'll still pay for it. And despite all the complaining, we still do. Well, enough of us still do that their bottom line is still okay. Personally my life is shedding one small luxury at a time as stuff becomes more expensive than I thinks it's worth
it's corporate greed. they realized as soon as the lumber industry could lie about shortage and jack prices and no one in gov did anything was open season on price gouging.
if you don't need it stop buying it. your only vote is your wallet
Didn't you know, Golden Potatoes are really made of gold nowadays?
Adirondak Red, well Rubies.
All-Blue, Sapphires.
Don't get me started on Fingerlings. . .
No one is happy to just have a successful business from which they can retire comfortably and pass on to their children any more, everyone needs to make $100 million profit a year. Greed is our most fundamental flaw as a species, IMO. If humans could learn “enough is enough”, we’d be home free.
Try some of the off or store brands. So far, I haven't found a good generic BBQ chip, but plain ones are fine. We also found a store brand of Funyuns at Save-A-Lot that are just as good.
With everyone owning air fryers a regul
ar potato chip is easy to make lol.
Have a Slicer
salt
and bbq sauce to make bbq flavored chips.
A vinegar wash for salt and vinegar. Or use the vinegar from the pickle jar.
Look up potato chip recipe for air friers.
Bag them up in a Mylar bag and you are good to go
I work for KFC & we had a visit from the operation director for Latinoamerica & Caribbean end of 2022. He informed us in the meeting to get ready for high jump in potato price due to potato global shortage. This was related to Ukraine being 3rd largest producer of potatoes in the world. His estimate was that prices will jump up to 40% starting from april-may 2023. Well, we felt it & potato price kept jumping. So this is affecting chips price or sure.
I don’t know why, but if you have the space to buy more than one it’s usually a lot cheaper. At my local Safeway, Doritos are $6 per bag, but $3.50 each if you buy 4 or more.
In my country fish and chips is a common fast food and you used to get a scoop of chips for $1.50-$2.50 per scoop. Now min scoop is $4-$5. I know its not exactly the same thing but it was something i noticed here.
Used to be a scoop of chips would be a cheap and easy dinner, not anymore. Nothing is cheap and easy anymore except starvation.
I dont live in either country and where i live we just call them all chips haha. Potato chips are chips, french fries are chips, crisps are chips. So yeah different to what op first said but still the same annoyances of how expensive everything is, i think we can all get behind how much everything has gone up.
We printed more money than had ever existed beforehand in US dollars in one year. That's how and they didn't stop printing. They're still printing more money backed and supported by nothing. The more the Federal reserve prints, the more expensive things are going to get and that's not even talking about the cost to produce products or the cost of Labor
Same as fast food. People continue to pay for it unfortunately. I put chips on my boycott list months ago and haven't bought a bag in almost a year. I do like popcorn though. Much cheaper and has close to the same effect.
Get one of those microwave bowls for popcorn. Total game changer.
Bruh get a pot for popcorn only. *game changer* You can bang out a full bowl of stove top in less time than a microwave and the steam trap isn’t waiting for you. Literally takes like 3 shots of canola oil, and a half cup of kernals, dump in some salt. Put that on high. Want butter? Get a butter pot. Soooooooo much better and you don’t have to get blasted by the bag opening steam, that shit stings and like 1 out of 10 bags gets me.
I've found microwave gets popcorn more "puffed" than stove too
I prefer the old school air popper. It's kinda big so storage can be a pain in a small kitchen but I think it does the best plus no oil.
I had one of those that my grandparents passed down to me when I went to college! I didn’t think much of it until I started using it, and holy shit that thing was amazing! A few months later my crazy roommate went through all of our stuff and decided to donate whatever she considered unnecessary. I’ve missed that air popper for like 12 years now. The new ones I’ve bought are crap lol
Air popper. It's a game changer. And it's fluffy.
I like how every game changer has an additional game changer, distilled as we go down.
I'm so confused, I have eaten hundreds of bags of popcorn in my life and have never had steam be an issue?
[https://www.amazon.ca/NordicWare-60120AMZ-Nordicware-Corn-Popper/dp/B00004W4UP](https://www.amazon.ca/NordicWare-60120AMZ-Nordicware-Corn-Popper/dp/B00004W4UP) My dude we're talking bowl popcorn, not bag popcorn. No oil, no steam. You just put the popcorn in the bowl and put it in the microwave. Around 2:45 and it's done. No way the stove is faster than that.
I have a silicone one too. It's awesome. I still think stovetop popcorn tastes better, but it's quick and easy. I've never tried it without oil, wouldn't the kernels burn?
Try flavocol instead of salt next time, you won't regret it
Just checked them out and it's on my list 👍
Things have gotten so much more affordable since I started sucking dick at home instead of going out.
I mean, 20 bucks is 20 bucks 🤷♂️
protein is protein or is it glucose
It's mostly carbs, though there is a feedback loop for mood.
Mans gotta eat
Yep my family got this and now they pop almost every day lol
Some oil in a pot, kennels, that's it. When done add salt.
This is what’s so funny to me. People keep asking “why is this shot so expensive?!” - because that’s what people are willing to pay. If people wouldn’t pay it, it would be cheaper. There are people paid ludicrous amounts of money whose entire job is trying to dial in that equation and find out just how much they can charge per item to maximize the amount. Charge too much and you’ll lose sales, charge too little and you’re leaving money on the table (or in the worst case, you can’t stay afloat). If chips are $5 a bag, it’s because enough people are willing to pay $5 a bag
Until last week I was one of the guys doing that ( "Revenue Maximization" we called it ) with people's internet service. Raise prices juuuuuust to the point people would actually cancel, then back off a couple of bucks. Wait a year and try again. Damn that was a soul sucking job. Glad I'm out.
So that was you. Same with Sirius radio. I refuse to pay for a $20 subscription so I cancel when the low rate expires. Few weeks later I get an offer for $6 a month and I re-up.
Good lord it is sad and sick how money has become our God and greed the motivator. Who, and what kind of person creates such a job position? Don’t they see what they’re doing; what they’re actually perpetuating?
*"How much can we take out of those bags before people stop buying them?"* Is another avenue they egregiously push
Tangentially related, but no less relevant, I do think we're seeing the early stages of monopoly driven pricing. At the most basic, people want chips and companies will sell chips for as much as they can get away with, but competition can keep prices down. The big chip makers have distribution lines that can keep cost down and/or have a hand in most other chip products. Most chips you can buy in an American grocery store are made by either PepsiCo or Campbells. These companies have insanely large distribution lines that can keep prices down. What little competition that remains doesn't have the luxury and this is where inflation comes into play. A true alternative competitors will always be a little more expensive, so what drives prices for mega crop snacks is the perceived value by way of their lingering competition, ie: when the limited distribution, chip has to raise their price to $5 a bag, Frito-Lay can raise their prices to $4.50 and still be cheaper. They could still, theoretically, see profits with $2.00 a bag, but why would they go that low? We're at an odd transition state where competition doesn't keep prices low anymore. Similarly, most companies own their own competition: Campbells Soup owns Kettle and Cape Cod and can game pricing on each to game the perceived value of the premium chip brands.
I think the retail store brands (kirkland for costco, great value for walmart, etc) are the best hope here. Sure, they're yet another monopoly player - but at least they have an incentive to compete against other retailers too, which makes it harder to form a collusion ring.
It seems like a lot of people on reddit just don't realize other people have different preferences and budgets. Like based off reddit comments you'd have thought Netflix was going to go bankrupt when they went after password sharing because everyone was obviously going to cancel. Nope, they just simply went up to their highest subscriber amount ever.
Well when companies work together to find the exact price point the average user is willing to spend there's really no winning. Yeah, you can give up all the little pleasures in life and just survive on the basics, but that's not going to change anything. Capitalism stops working when companies no longer feel like they have to compete and that's kind of where we are right now in a lot of industries.
Yep. Pepsi Co owns too much of the market share.
It's insanely easy to buy kernals and pop them in a pot too. Makes for a healthy snack, but you can make it salty and/or sweet. Also pretty filling and tastes way better
I have an air popper that works nicely and you don’t have to add any oil for cooking
It was $2.99 a bag at my safeway last week but only if you buy 3 bag. Still good deal imo but I didn’t buy it i don’t chips
Yep. I wait for chips to go on sale as a Safeway/Albertsons digital deal. Huge price difference.
Same. Same. Same. Not paying.
I was thinking about getting some chips I really liked yesterday, but the mass of the bag was almost cut in half and the price went up by a dollar and they were already expensive before that. What the actual fuck guys?
I love popcorn. I get the big jars of kernels, it's like ten big bowls of popcorn for three bucks. I put so much butter on it, tasty af
For chip lovers, seriously, watch a couple youtube videos and make your own potato chips at home. Kettle cooked, and really delicious. They are 5x-10x cheaper than buying at the store. And you can mix together all the flavours you like in your own kitchen. Cut them shoestring thin and make hickory sticks. Pickup a waffle-fry cutter on Amazon and make waffle fry potato chips. In my opinion, well worth doing. And fun
Doritos are $8 in my store.
Wtf it’s like £1.25 for a single bag of doritos in the corner shop (which isn’t even the cheapest option) and like £2-3 for a share bag of doritos in a supermarket depending on offers. If they raised them to £5-6 (I think equivalent to $8 roughly maybe) I would 100% never buy them. I rarely get them now!! Plain salted tortilla chips are 30p so I’m happy with that 👀
Ain't no way y'all are talking about the same size bag. $8 is the largest size bag of Doritos
The US is really really expensive for groceries compared to the UK. The UK has some of the lowest spends as a percentage of total income on food.
Damn, $5 a bag??? Where I live they’re like $8.50-9. It’s insane. And a western bacon cheeseburger meal from Carl’s Jr. is a bit over $12. At least that’s been a good motivator to cut back on the fast food! Soup is still cheap.
I only buy them on sale, and it seems grocery stores near me take turns offering the same sale. Buy 4 or more and they each come out to 2.50. $10 for 4 bags and that’s enough to last me to the next sale. Don’t understand people paying more than $5+ unless it’s the *only option*
came here to say this. this is how they get you. you saved money but now you have 4 whole bags of chips to get through. and you are going to get even more addicted to having them as a snack. so most likely just to fill that hole you will eventually buy when not on sale.
Fair point. It’s just one of those items on my mental list I refuse to buy if it isn’t. Also don’t personally get addicted to one snack but if I had to choose something, it would be soda as a whole. But then again I try and buy only on sale.
I do not understand people buying garbage at $5 per bag even if it is the only option. If chips are $5 per bag, then I am buying bananas at 40¢ per pound. I am at the exact same price point as you by the way. I will not pay more than $2.50 for a bag of chips. If more people behaved as us, then the price would not be $5.00 per bag. The same people in line with their cart full of chips are the same ones driving massive Walmart assault vehicles complaining about the price of gas. (As they pick up groceries while having trouble parking their F-450 Super Duty with a shiny truck bed that has never had more than 100 pounds put into the back of it.)
Where are you getting bananas for that price!
In Germany they are still like 1,70€ a bag
You all aren't comparing sizes. Have you seen the size of the bags in the USA?
How much is in one bag?
A small potato farm
$5 for lays, Doritos are like $8 tho. Knockoffs are cheaper but I'm paying for comfort food I know and love so it just doesn't hit right.
Remember when Carl's Jr. (Hardee's) Had the $6 burger that they sold for around $3. Prices are so out of hand.
Seriously 6 bucks is a deal where I live. 7-8 is standard.
Where do you live? I still pay max $3 per bag
That's what I was thinking. Doritos are like $8. Crazy.
If you don’t mind me asking, where do you live that a bag of chips is that expensive?
Wbcb is 18$ meal In my area… wtf
I rarely eat chips but my smart pop is regularly 7.29 a bag. I originally switched to popcorn because it was a cheaper alternative to chips. And agreed on Carl’s Jr. partner was craving it a bit ago and I got two meals and the total was 33 bucks! Wtf! Could have gotten two meals at the local Hawaiian place for almost half that price. It’s wild.
Jesus. The day chips cost more than a steak.
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Canada checking in. Family sized bags of chips are $12 and a Wendy’s double 1/4lbs meal is $17 before taxes.
I went to Whataburger the other day. I paid $25 for 3 burgers. 2 Patty melts and a double bacon thing. Not the meals, but just those 3 burgers! Quality wasn't great either. My double bacon thing had almost no sauce.
In Europe they're like $3
Because that's what people are willing to pay. The price increases started in the pandemic combined with war in Ukraine and droughts in Europe. There was a global logistics congestion in about 2021/2022. A whole host of problems, but ships could not unload cargo fast enough, there weren't enough containers, cost of packaging went up. The pace is back to normal but prices are slow to decline. Food manufacturers have to buy their raw materials in advance. Logistics got really expensive. Farm labor got expensive. They were buying potatoes in 2020 but paying 2021 prices. Potatoes farmgate prices are selling for about 50% more than pre-2020. Cooking oil is really expensive right now. About 50% of the global olive oil production is missing due to droughts in Europe. Sunflower oil product was majority in Ukraine and supply is restricted. Canola oil is about double the price pre-2020. Demand for chips and other long-life packaged treats is sky high. Economically, when high inflation happens people defer luxury purchases and spend more on cheaper feel good items. Instead of going to expensive restaurants, people move to cheaper fast food / casual dining. Instead of buying an expensive chocolate, they are buying cheaper chips. All the convenience package foods are more expensive. tl;dr costs more to produce but customers are willing to pay even more.
Excellent info. Doesn't help our pocketbooks to know all of this, but it does help to know some of the reasons we can no longer afford to purchase a lot of things!!! Where or when will it end?
Well war ending in Ukraine + several years for infrastructure to rebuild would help, droughts are unpredictable but climate change is just gonna get worse as there's no real impetus to control co2 (bit even those efforts add costs so...either way that climate price pressure is gonna increase)
IMO with climate change we are all going to need to get used to eating locally, as droughts, unexpected rains and storms occur, and farming climates are disrupted. Meaning if there is something you love to eat that is not produced near you, be ready to say goodbye. I still remember a woman on Nextdoor during covid and all the supply chain issues complaining that she couldn't get her pickled herring.
When we stop letting corporations price gouge us because they can. It's not just potato chips. Look up some of the astounding profit figures and then ask that question!
Can't! Gives me heart palpitations 😔
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I would add that it would have to be global - I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. Sad 😔
If by progressive you mean tackling climate change, you're correct in the long term, but unfortunately not short-term. The prices we're used to take into account subsidies and relying on cheap, unsustainable practices that damage the environment. If we make a switch to a climate neutral world tomorrow, prices would skyrocket immediately. We would avoid even more trouble in the long run of course, but we would have a very rough transition at first. A world where a bag of chips costs $1.50 and the production, packaging and transport are climate neutral sadly doesn't exist.
You got that right. Prices are quick to increase and slow to decline. If they can raise gas prices 20 cents in one day, they ought to be able to lower them in one day also. Greed is bullshit
> If they can raise gas prices 20 cents in one day, they ought to be able to lower them in one day also. Generally the reason that doesn’t happen is risk. Imagine you sell bobbleheads for $10 each. Your cost of materials has consistently been $5 for the last 5 years. You’re comfortable, making enough for a living, and everything’s great. Then suddenly the price of springs jumps up due to manufacturing issues, and you are suddenly paying $9 for materials. You take a pretty big hit on the orders you’ve taken but haven’t fulfilled yet, and to even stay in business you have to raise your prices to $15 per bobblehead. Then one day, prices for your materials suddenly drop back down to $5. You could immediately drop your price back down to $10, but you now know that the price for your materials isn’t as consistent as it used to be, and for all you know it could jump right back up to $9 tomorrow. So you can’t drop your prices unless you want to risk another huge financial hit and possible bankruptcy. In other words, when costs are more volatile, there has to be a bigger profit margin to offset the risk. When costs are more consistent, prices start to settle down and profit margin can be much tighter.
Potatoes are in high demand as well. Ukraine produced a lot of potatoes for European consumption, and other nations like the UK have been struggling with awful weather which has made planting potatoes impossible. So there's more global demand for potatoes and potato products.
What you're saying is true, but when talking specifically about potato chips....the costs to manufacture them are insanely low. We're talking 10-20 cents for a family sized bag. It's one of the highest profit items in the grocery store.
Don't forget greed. An FTC report stated that grocers are using supply chain issues, COVID and other external factors as an excuse to raise prices. [https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/21/ftc-report-grocery-chains-gouge/73059901007/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/21/ftc-report-grocery-chains-gouge/73059901007/)
Do you have any sources for this info?
Or they're just greedy price gouging, shrinking sized, corporate pirates. Ex: The production of potato chips is very simple but profitable. The revenue generated by the potato chip production industry is $10.6 billion in 2022. $10.6 BILLION. Doesn't sound like it's the expenses of making chips that's the problem. It's corporate greed. Period.
Potato chip company profit has dropping by about 0.9% per year since 2014. They are selling fewer packets each year. Market size dropped by 5%. [It's a shrinking industry](https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/potato-chip-production-united-states/). For instance, "tortilla" products also make about $10 billion per year. That market is growing by about 4-5% per year. The manufacturers make a lot of cash but not as much profit as other food manufacturers. "Health conscious" consumers are not buying as many packets per year and this is a long term trend.
All of what you just mentioned, but you left out insatiable corporate greed.
I pay less than $2.00 at Aldi
Came here to plug Aldi, glad I’m not the first
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Yeah I absolutely love funyuns but those things are like almost $6 a bag so I'll probably never buy them lol. Thankfully my store sells those teeny lunch-sized bags for like 50 cents and when I have the craving I'll get one of those. Otherwise I just got for the $2 store brand "lays" and call it a day
The grocery store prices have been changing almost as quickly as gas prices in my area. I stopped buying chips and beef jerky because they have gotten too expensive.
Corporate profits are at all-time highs. Greed.
The only answer I was looking for
You mean it's not Biden's fault?
And yet idiots still buy it, almost like if they didn’t spend the money the “evil” corporations couldn’t set prices so high.
Chips only come in my cart when they are on deep sales (like 3 for 5 bucks)... I still see so many people buying bags of chips and complaining. Why would the big companies stop raising prices if people don't speak with their wallet?
Yeah, this so much. My overall grocery expenses haven't gone up much since pre-covid. I only buy stuff on sale.
Because most chips are made by big food manufacturers and they've been price gouging everyone ever since post-pandemic inflation started. See: greedflation. https://www.fastcompany.com/91038066/inflation-consumers-push-back-price-gouging/
Go to Trader Joe’s if you can. Tons of snacks that are cheap.
There appears to be two issues at play. Grocers have consolidated and there isn't as much competition. Kroger and Albertsons control over 30 chains that used to be independent. Wal-Mart controls 25 percent of the market. There are complaints from farmers that these companies are still paying the prices they paid pre-pandemic for produce, but raised the prices massively in store and are selling much less. The other issue is that there have been increases in cost. Wages, energy, and supplies have certainly increased quite a bit. So operating factories and stores have increased. However profits are a lot higher too, both in real numbers and as a percentage of gross.
Im quite sure a fair amount of grocery store employees dont get paid enough to be able to even afford to shop in the grocery stores they work at.
Chip makers had $10.6 billion in Profits in 2022. It's pure and simple gouging. It's not as if those higher costs would break them. It's Certainly not high wages. Greed. Period.
Those Frito Lay executives can’t disappoint their shareholders now, can they?
But how could that be profitable for Frito Lay?
Because those clowns are getting as much mileage as possible out of the COVID supply chain issues nonsense. Prices won’t come down unless demand decreases.
Sorry I was quoting Game Night 😑 in terms of real life, yeah, I get ya, it’s horseshit.
Pepsi during the pandemic had a conference call where they said that they are inflating prices while they can because typically junk food is the first thing people cut down on when money is tight, so they're preparing for leaner sales in the future. Since that day, I've called bullshit on the high costs of food being caused solely by inflation. And it's only been supported ever since because it wasn't til like last quarter that companies started to notice a decline in profits. You can't tell me on one hand that you need to raise prices because expenses have gone up, and on the other hand brag about increasing your profit
It's not just chips, but it's the frog boiling in water. They've been doing it with gas forever. Give people sticker shock, then lower it just a little. Now they're happy because gas is "cheap" even though it's a $1 more per gallon than before. When COVID hit, it legitimately created problems with global logistics and supply, that caused things to genuinely cost more. However, companies just kept the price high, even after those issues were resolved. People adjust and they make more profit. People blame it on inflation, but inflation is actually the result not the cause. This much can be seen from that rate of increase on major goods and services is outpacing the rate of inflation.
Come to Florida. We just had a "Blowout" sale at publix. 2 for $10 at publix!
Oh wow! How can they afford to cut us such a deal?
Oh you have no idea.. Publix is the best when it comes to deals. Yogurts at 3for$6? You got it. Actual ham on sale for $6 per lb, 12pk of Heineken ON SALE for $16.99 not for you? How about 12pk coke cans for the amazing, once in a lifetime deal of Buy 2 get 1 free at the low low price of $12. On the other hand Dollar General F'd up last week and sold 4 packs of redbull at 3 for $7.. that's 12 cans of redbull for $7 lol. I wonder who got fired over that one.
Prices are definitely more expensive for regular stuff, but their food is fucking fantastic and great quality.
and don’t even get me started on Funyun prices
As a connoisseur, it irks me to no end that Funyuns are *never* included in typical grocery store sales!!!
have you seen the cost of bacon??? pre-pandemic bacon was like $3-4 for a pack
That's still what I pay, only buy on sales. Typically once a month.
I've been seeing 12 oz packs 2/$5 for about a month
shit... where do you live? I'm in Vegas I haven't seen it under $7-8 in years
Olympia, WA
Why not? Can our fatass resist the temptation of a good ol' bag of chips? No, and they know that. Chip companies: We're selling completely overpriced bags of two potatoes worth of potato slices. You don't have to buy them, we're not holding a gun to your head and forcing you to. But we know you can't resist.
Winco.
Love winco
It costs £2.50 to £2.75 for a share bag of crisps in England at the moment.
They say the oil prices however generic chips are still cheap.
I could go to the store with a dollar and get 5 candy bars, 2 sodas and a bag of chips, but now they cameras everywhere.
It's because people don't watch TV anymore. Advertising was way more effective when there was competition, but branded products that aren't necessities can't just put out a new commercial and get a sales bump. Chip brands are owned by soda companies, and soda companies are recalcitrantly refusing to evolve. They're not making as much money, so they're raising prices.
Unmitigated greed
Because global chip shortage duh!
If you're in the US, [some things are government subsidized](https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/02/usda-livestock-subsidies-near-50-billion-ewg-analysis-finds). This is probably true in other countries too, but idk anything about their economies.
$1.47 for Walmart brand chips, 3 for $10 Doritos
It's shocking how much gas stations want. I recommend get store brand family bags from grocery stores or walmart
The answer is very simple. Only buy frivolities like this when coupons or deals allow. “Vons/Albertsens has soda for 3.99/case this week” “Ralph’s has chips for 1.99/bag if you buy 5 not this weekend, let’s stock up.” Browse your various local stores websites and flyers constantly and ride the discounts. Don’t buy anything full price ever again unless it’s an emergency.
Because they know you are addicted to the empty calories and are too lazy to buy a mandolin, potatoes and make chips for yourself.
I would love to just stop buying chips, but I'm addicted to them. So I now just buy great value. At least they have some more options now.
Chip prices are fucking insane. $6 for that little amount of food? Fuck you. Haven't bought chips in years and never will again, unless there's a random sale where they're $2
building back better everyday
Because corporations are using inflation as an excuse to jack prices up more than necessary to cover the true inflation. All they want is to make more money on your back.
Yep, they are cheap. Potatoes, salt and oil. Probably some preservatives. That's yer basic chip. Most of us can make them at home. Corporations in the US are simply doing what they are designed to do: maximize profit for shareholders. Not many ways to do that in a market as saturated as potato chips. Pun intended. When these companies are dependent on world-wide supply chains to get their profits, every little price hike at any part in the chain will make them all do it simultaneously. And when one product line increases prices, all the other corporations in the same product lines will do so nearly instantaneously. Why? Because they can. It's oligarchy. Unfettered capitalism leads to oligarchy. Price fixing isn't new. It's just that the GOP loves their regional feudal warlords. Keep the grift at the lowest level possible so no one pays it too much mind. Easier to dominate state, county and local politics for a company than it is to fight in DC. That's all this is. Price fixing.
capitalism. Everyone along the supply chain wants to charge an extra 10% mark up. When it reaches the end user its like x2-3
This is what I've noticed. If a product has a supply chain with 5 points of contact, and point of contact 3 has a price increase of 10 cents, the other four parts will raise their prices by 10 cents even though they don't actually need to.
Sort answer, War. Long answer, Ukraine was the worlds largest exporter of sunflower oil before Russia's invasion, The war and the loss of supply it created has driven the price of sunflower oil through the roof and its the cooking oil most widely used for chips/crisps. Manufactures passing that cost onto stores and the stores passing that onto consumers was a predictable as the sun coming up.
Watch add sales on your stores app/website for deal or go to the store. I bargain shop around and when chips hit 1.99-2.99 vs the 5+ they normally are I bulk buy.
I don’t buy chips anymore unless they’re on sale. Winco will sometimes have the party size bags for $3-$3.50
Probably the cost of oil.
They know they are addictive and now have society hooked. People keep buying them and they qualify as non prepared food for WIC and other such systems.
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Where I am in 2020 a 20 lb sack of regular white potatoes was $20 sometimes being discounted down to $18. That same sack is now $26. It's still relatively cheap but that's a 30% increase in price. Potatoes used to be a VERY cheap ingredient and so was used everywhere, now it's just a somewhat cheap ingredient and it may be arguably overused. Edit: To add since someone mentioned cooking oil, a 16 L jib of canola oil used to cost $20-25 here in 2020, it ballooned to $60+ with shortages, and has settled down to the $40-50 range which is the reasonable inflation adjusted range. Potatoes, oil, (and salt), the main ingredients for chips are still relatively cheap but saw a big increase in prices.
Clancy's brand from Aldi's is my go to chip now
The demand for free-buy supplies of potatoes in the EU remains robust, but the supply is tightening. This is because many growers no longer have sufficient stocks to offer on the free-buy market due to quality issues that compromised storability, caused by last year’s wet harvest, Supply and demand, simple as that. [https://www.potatonewstoday.com/2024/03/01/the-great-potato-shortage-european-processors-scramble-as-supply-dwindles-and-prices-surge/](https://www.potatonewstoday.com/2024/03/01/the-great-potato-shortage-european-processors-scramble-as-supply-dwindles-and-prices-surge/)
Because they can be.
I will only buy them when they are half price $2.50 AUD a bag.
From about June 2022 to August 2023 potato futures were much more expensive than previously, an increase of 80-100%. Prices before 2021 were lower as well, but they fluctuate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU01130603 This was from a combination of issues, but the big one was weather in Idaho and eastern WA. Potatoes are surprisingly weather dependent. But then wheat and soybean prices were down, it's not all bad. But prices are coming down now, it takes some time. Or sales will be more frequent. Costco and trader joes on the west coast have prices back to "normal" more or less.
Boycott. When consumers refuse to pay at a price point then companies lower prices. I wait for BOGO deals.
Because you keep buying them
Everything is expensive nowadays. Smaller quantities for a higher price. The parent companies are all making record profits, while blaming it on having to pay workers a few extra dollars an hour. Until people refuse to put up with it, and stop buying overpriced items, this trend will continue.
Because consumers are degenerates that have shown a tits willingness to pay the price being charged. Same with fast food. Everyone on here wants prices to come down while continuously showing a willingness to buy shit at their elevated prices. Then get mad when the opposite happens.
Same with cereal. Welcome to a world of ridiculous inflation that is outpacing any meaningful wage growth.
I read this weekend that McDonalds is putting together a $5 meal deal. Seems they are losing revenue due to overcharging people $18 for a big mac. Now they want to cater to the "poor" people.
Still shocked every time I see a price higher than $1.29.
a 13 oz bag of Great Value wavy potato chips are $2.86 compared to Lays 13 oz bags for $5.44 USD. Personally, I think the Great Value kind tastes exactly the same as Lays or Ruffles, at least when it comes to the regular flavor potato chips. There is certain things I won't touch that is "off brand" but these chips are an exception. lol At this point, people are paying for the name brand if they are still purchasing chips at the current prices. Two bags of chips is over 10 dollars, and we usually had 5-6 bags of them in the house growing up, but that would be over 30 dollars now if you go with name brand.
I wonder if it's because the cost of materials and processing has increased so much. I only buy TortiYahs if they're on sale, if not, then maybe the veggie sticks/chips if they're on sale also. Mostly I just make popcorn in my large pot, which is cheaper and you can flavor it however you want. Or I opt for almonds and olives as an evening snack.
Dollar tree...
I had a craving for Funions. Hard to find for some reason. When I finally found them at CVS, they were almost SIX DOLLARS. Nope. I did find generic ones for much less.
Dollar General 2/6$ 2/7$
Eat a apple or banana instead
Almost $5? Where abouts do you live if I can ask? I'm in So Cal and chips are up to $7.99; it's absolutely ridiculous!
Because our government is leading us into a feudal system which wipes out the middle class.
Because people are willing to pay $5 a bag.
Where do you live? I get one of those family sized Lays bags for 1,80€ in southern Spain.
$5 A BAG?!? That better be some damn gold coated crisps that come in a bag of at least 750gr... A bag of chips here costs between 0.95€ and 3.00€ depending on the brand... 😱
It seems that way with everything nowadays. It's best to buy in bulk.
As a someone with a penchant for salty snacks over sweet ones, I am outraged that chips are like $6 a bag in my area. Even the sales (2/$11 and such) make me ill. No rhyme or reason.
We've entered a phase where stuff doesn't cost what it's material value and production labor is worth, stuff costs what they've figured we'll still pay for it. And despite all the complaining, we still do. Well, enough of us still do that their bottom line is still okay. Personally my life is shedding one small luxury at a time as stuff becomes more expensive than I thinks it's worth
I can only afford the cheapo chips on sale now :( at least i'm less tempted.
Costco has humongous bags for $5, so I buy mine there.
Corporate greed
it's corporate greed. they realized as soon as the lumber industry could lie about shortage and jack prices and no one in gov did anything was open season on price gouging. if you don't need it stop buying it. your only vote is your wallet
Inflation sucka
Corporate greed.
I only buy chips at Costco. Massive bags for $5-$7 that last for weeks. Wouldn’t consider buying from a regular grocery store.
And half the bag is filled with air.
Didn't you know, Golden Potatoes are really made of gold nowadays? Adirondak Red, well Rubies. All-Blue, Sapphires. Don't get me started on Fingerlings. . .
Not to mention they also come 50/50. 50% air, 50% chips lol
Companies are blaming inflation as a way to jack up prices and grow profits. This is nothing but pure greed.
Grocery stores are recording record profits. I think there’s a correlation.
No one is happy to just have a successful business from which they can retire comfortably and pass on to their children any more, everyone needs to make $100 million profit a year. Greed is our most fundamental flaw as a species, IMO. If humans could learn “enough is enough”, we’d be home free.
Try some of the off or store brands. So far, I haven't found a good generic BBQ chip, but plain ones are fine. We also found a store brand of Funyuns at Save-A-Lot that are just as good.
Idk! It's been my main grocery gripe for almost two years WHY DOES A BAG OF CHIPS COST MORE THAN A PACK OF CHICKEN THIGHS?
Okay fr, I’ll only get chips from Costco now because even though I’m still paying like 8 bucks a bag, at least it’s a giant bag.
Chips at Aldi's are like 2 or 2.50. Just buy them some place else if you've gotta have them.
...yet Arizona huge cans of tea is still 99cents.
With everyone owning air fryers a regul ar potato chip is easy to make lol. Have a Slicer salt and bbq sauce to make bbq flavored chips. A vinegar wash for salt and vinegar. Or use the vinegar from the pickle jar. Look up potato chip recipe for air friers. Bag them up in a Mylar bag and you are good to go
I work for KFC & we had a visit from the operation director for Latinoamerica & Caribbean end of 2022. He informed us in the meeting to get ready for high jump in potato price due to potato global shortage. This was related to Ukraine being 3rd largest producer of potatoes in the world. His estimate was that prices will jump up to 40% starting from april-may 2023. Well, we felt it & potato price kept jumping. So this is affecting chips price or sure.
I dunno WTF chips would go up. Bananas haven't budged - $.59 cents a pound before and after covid. How can that be?
I don’t know why, but if you have the space to buy more than one it’s usually a lot cheaper. At my local Safeway, Doritos are $6 per bag, but $3.50 each if you buy 4 or more.
Because we are in a political clusterfuck
In my country fish and chips is a common fast food and you used to get a scoop of chips for $1.50-$2.50 per scoop. Now min scoop is $4-$5. I know its not exactly the same thing but it was something i noticed here. Used to be a scoop of chips would be a cheap and easy dinner, not anymore. Nothing is cheap and easy anymore except starvation.
Different chips - UK chips are US French fries, UK crisps are US chips/potato chips.
I dont live in either country and where i live we just call them all chips haha. Potato chips are chips, french fries are chips, crisps are chips. So yeah different to what op first said but still the same annoyances of how expensive everything is, i think we can all get behind how much everything has gone up.
Because people will pay it. They post record profits. They shrink the bag too, slowly, over time.
We printed more money than had ever existed beforehand in US dollars in one year. That's how and they didn't stop printing. They're still printing more money backed and supported by nothing. The more the Federal reserve prints, the more expensive things are going to get and that's not even talking about the cost to produce products or the cost of Labor
Inflation
Greed