just realized how wild the grocery situation has gotten. there are literally stores where only rich people can actually shop without having a heart attack at checkout

like erewhon in socal is insane — $20 for a smoothie, and if you want a single strawberry from some luxury japanese vendor it's $19. a full grocery haul there can hit $1000 easy. that's not shopping, that's a lifestyle flex

whole foods claims they cut prices but it's still crazy. their organic bone broth is like $12.79 when sprouts has basically the same thing for $8.49. gelson's is even worse — $3.99 for one avocado when target sells a 4-pack of organic ones for $6.39

the fresh market is the same energy, got rated 1 out of 5 for price competitiveness by consumer reports. same as gelson's actually. these stores literally position themselves as "premium experiences" which is code for "rich people only"

food prices jumped almost 24% between 2020-2024 and it just keeps going up. so now you've got these grocery stores that are basically status symbols for the wealthy. makes you wonder if this is just the new normal or if things will ever level out