Shopping

Before I begin talking about the differences in grocery shopping between Florida and Idaho, I need to once again briefly discuss Idahoan winter. This past week has been approximately 20 degrees below normal. This means a lot for a Florida swamp rat who was expecting highs in the 30’s this time of year. I knew it would be a lot colder than Florida, but it’s been insanely cold! Last week, we had one snowfall on Christmas Day that lasted through the following day and another brief snowfall over the weekend. A total of three to four inches. As of this writing, a full week later, 90% of the snow and ice is still on the ground and roads because it’s been so cold that even the sun’s direct heat in the middle of the day isn’t enough to melt it. Yesterday’s high temperature was about 16 degrees and we’ve had nights in the single digits. Definitely not Florida weather. The other day, I texted a friend in Florida and told her how cold it was. She texted back that they had just shut off their air conditioner for the night! What I wouldn’t do right now for just one or two days of Florida winter weather, and it’s only the beginning of January! I was told that while the temperatures we’re currently experiencing, while not record breaking, are considered unusual even for long-time Idaho residents, and I also received a warning that the night time temperatures are cold enough to cause frostbite in a matter of seconds so it was very important to layer up and cover exposed areas. Lucky us! And you know one thing that’s really weird? In Florida, at the first frost, the St. Augustine grass we had would turn brown and unless we had a long warm-up would stay brown for the rest of the winter. Here, we’ve had temperatures down to 0 and several inches of snow to boot and the grass is still green for the most part! I understand there’s different types of grasses in different areas and such, but it’s pretty amazing to me to look outside and see snow and green grass.

Now, for today’s topic: grocery stores. There are quite a few stores that are located in both areas, obviously, but to me it seems pretty astounding when you think of the distance involved. You could travel across most of Europe and through 10 or more countries for the distance we traveled to move to Idaho. Ten countries with completely different languages, cultures, religions, you name it. And here, we travel that distance, we’re still speaking English, and 80 percent of the stores are the same! No matter where you travel in the United States, you’re going to find Wal-Marts, Targets, Home Depots, Lowes, and K-Marts among many others. The biggest differences when it comes to stores appear to be the grocery stores.

In Florida, the store we frequented the most was Publix, “Where Shopping is a Pleasure”. Publix has been rated by Consumer Reports an umpteen number of times as the grocery store with the best customer service in the country and it was by far our favorite, although some in the area would argue that Publix was a more expensive than some others. Publix is based out of Lakeland, Florida. Our second most favorite place to purchase groceries was the Target Super Center. They had great prices on meats and frozen items. Well, there are no Target Super Centers in the Boise area. Targets, yep, but none that carry all of the groceries.

The next most common grocery store in Florida, apart from the Target Super Center and Wal-Mart (which is also common in Idaho) is Winn-Dixie, “The Beef People”. Winn-Dixie is the local supermarket, based out of Jacksonville, but they are throughout the southern U.S. This is where many “locals”, people who’ve lived in Florida all of their lives, go to shop. We would go there on occasion but it wasn’t our favorite. Due to other shopping options and many of their stores falling in to disrepair, Winn-Dixie has been having financial problems and had to file for bankruptcy protection a few years ago, but they appear to be doing better now.

A third grocery store found in Florida but not in Idaho is Save-A-Lot. It is primarily a discount grocer that sells many inexpensive, off-name brands right out of the big boxes they’re shipped in. When money was tight years ago, we went to Save-A-Lot in an effort to save money, and a lot of other people go there for the same reason. Not a great selection but the savings make it worth it for some people.

Idaho, on the other hand, has three main grocery stores: Fred Meyer, Alberton’s, and Winco. Fred Meyer, based out of Portland, Oregon, looks like an upscale Wal-Mart Super Center. They sell pretty much everything from a full grocery section to jewelry, to clothing and stationary products, to gasoline and everything in between but of higher quality than Wal-Mart. It is a great store to pick up specialty items and things you can’t find in other places, but we’ve found them to be a little more expensive than other places. An Idahoan version of Publix when it comes to food? Maybe.

Alberton’s is a grocery chain that is actually based out of the Boise area, but much like Winn-Dixie, they have fallen on hard times. Albertson’s was one of the first “giant” grocery stores that I remember as a kid that seemed to have everything: a full-sized bakery, deli, and meat department, but they have since lost to the competition vying for the same market. There was actually Albertson’s in the Jacksonville area until two or three years ago when they are all closed down, and the Albertson’s in the Boise are, while still open, are not doing that well either. The company was just bought out, from what I understand for the second time in as many years, and their future is looking mighty bleak.

And then there’s Winco. When walking in the door, Winco looks a lot like Sav-A-Lot in Florida with a lot of items being sold right out of cut boxes, but there’s a big difference. First off, Winco is much bigger. You can find almost anything there including a very large produce section, deli, and bakery, and they have affordable prices. There’s a few items we can’t find in Winco, but we’ve been able to do most of our shopping there. As of right now, Winco is our favorite place to shop. One thing about Winco that is a little bit different: they are really in to saving their customers money, therefore they do not take credit cards and one has to bag his own groceries, but so far it’s winning the grocery war in our books.

There are a few other grocery stores in the Boise area including Rosauers. They are based out of Spokane and there’s one in the Boise area. They have a lot more natural/health food than most stores, and Paul’s Market, a discount grocery story that is located just in the Boise area. Once thing that we’ve noticed about the Boise area, and not just when it comes to food markets, is the number of small mom and pop type small, single stores. There are several small corner or Hispanic markets that are almost non-existent in the Jacksonville area. I remember a few when I was a kid but have all but vanished since then.