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Slash Your Grocery Bill in Half

Posted at 4:34 AM, May 07, 2014
and last updated 2014-05-07 08:38:07-04

photo(29)HUDSONVILLE, Mich. (May 7, 2014) – You don’t have to cut coupons or scour the Sunday ads in order to save up to half on your grocery bill, if not more! Little gems around West and Southwest Michigan are known as “discount grocers”.

As soon as I stepped into the doors of Morrie’s Grocery Outlet, 2410 Chicago Drive, Hudsonville, my Smart Shopper senses were sent into overload. Aisles and aisles, stacked deep and high of everything from gigantic jars of pickles, juices, cereals and a showcase full of frozen meats, to a cooler full of my favorite hummus and salsa.

“I’ve been in the food business all of my life actually since I was 18 years-old and worked for a major food distributor most of my life. In 1990, I drifted off and saw the need for a place where they could buy people’s mistakes, I guess is what I like to say.” Owner Morrie Gabrielse explained. “We buy insurance deals, we buy change of label, we buy, basically from 48 states, there’s a lot of stuff available out there today on the market, we always say it’s like Christmas; we wake up in the morning, we don’t know when the phone is going to ring and what the opportunities are gonna be for the day.” he added.

For instance, if there is a case of cereal and three of the 12 boxes of cereal are damaged and the rest is good, Morrie gets his chance to buy that and pace amazing deals of up to 50 to 70 percent off sometimes.

As if the deals aren’t great enough, Morrie is offering burger patties that accidentally had prime rib ground into them; yes, prime rib, and that were meant for a chain restaurant, to the first 100 people who head to his location, for $1.99 per pound! You must say you are a Smart Shopper!

Some other examples:

  • Cream of Wheat: $2.59 (orig. around $4)
  • Kashi cereal : $1.79 (orig. around $4)
  • Advil PM: $6.99 (orig. $9)
  • Clorox 128 ounce Outdoor Bleach: $5 (orig. $9.98)
  • Restaurant sized gallon salad dressings: 2 for $3.99 (these can sell upwards of $18-$20 a piece!)

Morrie has inspectors that visit the store on a regular basis and is always happy to see them walk through his doors.

“You see signs in the store. We do sell product that is past the code date, the law says that we may do that , you have four major cereal packers and each one is Kellogg’s, Malt-O-Meal, General Mills, they all set their own specs, some give it 10 months, some give it 12 months some give it 15 month shelf life,” Morrie explained, adding that it doesn’t mean if a product reads “best by” or “best if eaten by” that it means it goes stale at midnight of that particular date.

Often, Morrie reads items that are too good for the specification that a company calls for and a major brand cannot slap their name on it. For instance, he once got apple sauce that was too thick and blueberry pie filling that had too many blueberries! Now THAT is a good problem to have, in my opinion.

Someone who actually buys from Morrie, is Jim and Debbie Hocking, owners of The Grocery Outlet, 400 Water St., Allegan. They are very particular about the brands and items they place in their store. Instantly my eyes go right to the 36 sampler pack of Keurig K-Cups for $14.97. In the store, those go for roughly $26.

“A company that gets to a date, a lot of times, companies like they have quite a large range of date when they sell them to a regular store and if they get within a three to four-month window sometime they will sell them out to a wholesaler and then I’ll buy from that wholesaler and then we can sell them for a discount here.” Jim explained.

Another eye-catching bargain was a sign that read “Ghirardelli” in front of some white chocolate chips that only cost $2.99. The bags were 22 ounces and normally they are around 12 ounces.

“They are repackaged because there was a mistake in the packaging so the company had to discard it because obviously they wanted to honor the quality of their product so they were repackaged and put in here so we could sell them, obviously get them at a great discount.” He added.

I buzzed my way around the store, snagging things that I would normally grab, and even snuck in a box of Pot of Gold Pecan Caramel Clusters because they were under $3! At a regular store, they sell for around $7.

My grand total for three bags full of groceries, the items you see in the picture, which included the $15 box of Keurig cups, came to $36.84. What an amazing deal!

I am told another great place to snag deals like this, is at Kuntry Corner Discounts, 61727 Lepley Rd, Burr Oak, Mich., 49030. You can contact them by calling, (269)651-7517.

I would love to hear about your smart shopping ways or to feature your deal in the Smart Shopper segment! Please email me, smartshopper@fox17online.com and follow me on twitter, @fox17deals.