I must admit I was a little excited when I saw all those bags of grapes and 1 pound boxes of strawberries when I picked up the reclaimed food boxes this week from Mr. Produce Guy.
Even though there were only 2 boxes of scraps saved for us, there were still plenty of treasures.
Umm, especially grapes.
The Girl and I could not figure out why the grapes had been tossed because they were all in excellent condition. There were so many in fact, I ended up giving a few bags of both red and green seedless grapes away to one of my neighbors.
It was crazy!
Sadly a lot of the strawberries were not salvageable, but it looks like I’ll be making banana bread again this week, and the kids will have grapes in their lunch every single day. Not to shabby if you ask me. I don’t know about you, but I love free food.
How much do grapes sell for this time of year anyway? Does anyone know?
~Mavis
Would you like to see what else we have brought home over the past year?
Head on over HERE to read all the past stories and to see all the pictures.
If you have just stumbled upon this series and are wondering how I got all this food for free, you’ll want to read this story first.
Susan says
The cheapest I have seen grapes this season is $1.78 lb. at Fred Meyer this week. They are normally priced at almost (if not) $3 lb.
It doesn’t seem that long ago when we could get them for .99 lb. this time of year!!
Cathy says
They were about $2.48 at Walmart, and $1.69 at a local ethnic market. You totally scored!
Val says
I used to do this two years ago. One grocery store in particular was great. The manager either marked it down very very low. Always packaged produce. Unfortunately the managers of this store didn’t talk to one another. The dairy department did it also, and they left it sitting marked down in the coolers. One day, when I got to the till, the cashier called a manager to confirm. I was accused of marking it down myself, in effect stealing. Right at the till, with $150 worth of groceries in my cart, in front of other customers. It was humiliating and I didn’t step foot inside that store for a year.
Now, my local food bank has an awesomely successful reclaimed food program, and I keep meaning to ask them if they pick up from the store that told me directly they never mark down or give away food because of the liability.
A few weeks ago I had a table at a fair inside the mall where that grocery store is. The manager who accused me walked by. I so wanted him to stop and browse my table so I could publicly accuse him of stealing. He never did, which is just as well because I probably would have chickened out.
Cherri says
With that many grapes I would have thrown some into the dehydrator for raisins. Yum! When my children were small (many years ago) we were able to go to the grocery store and buy a full box of loose grapes for $1 and my neighbor and I dried them all the time.
Marsha says
Have you tried freezing them? Frozen grapes are my all-time favorite snack!
Lisa says
My family loves frozen grapes too!
Nicola says
I just bought red grapes yesterday at Safeway 1.99 a Lb. I also bought some sweet potatoes for my dehydrator I noticed the fancy pet store was selling selling them as dog chews and my dog loved them so going to make them at home for her, the store keeps them in the fridge. Does anyone else do this? Thinking of making my own dog biscuits to.
Mom of 2 dogs says
Mavis! Would you be willing to try to dry some dog friendly items, and let us know how it goes? I want to do chicken breast (dog allergies to wheat/beef/corn, so no easy treats for us!), too many recalls on commercial chicken jerky for dogs. I’ve never tried…
Jessica says
Here in NE Ohio I have seen them hovering around the $2.69-$2.99/lb… This past weekend I saw green seedless at $1.99 a lb! Bought a bag that cost me $4.78… Kids are eating grapes this week!
Helen in Meridian says
Why not freeze some of your excess grapes to throw into smoothies instead of ice.
gardenpat says
I can’t believe it!!! I had a feeling I should visit one of my “chain” grocery mega-stores where they used to mark down produce and today I scored!!! Tomatoes- Romas as well as salad size and beefsteak, bell peppers- green and yellow- all for 35 cents a pound!!! I knew it would be salsa making time!!! Then I went to my close-by chain store and asked the produce guy if he had any “throw-away” produce for the chickens. He took me over to a large plastic trash can, gave me a couple cabbage leaves, then 2 zucchini, 4 small cukes, 2 small eggplants, and about 8 lbs of beautiful black seedless grapes! He put them in a box and told me to give his name to the cashier. The zucchini and cukes, a few bell peppers, mark down onions are chopped up and brining right now for pickle relish- have enough for 3 pints!!! I am in blissful shock!!!!
Mavis says
Bliss! 🙂