Just realized how wild some grocery stores actually are with their pricing. Like, I was scrolling and found out Erewhon in Southern California has been going absolutely viral because people are paying crazy money there. Hailey Bieber's smoothie is $20, which already sounds insane, but then there's this luxury fruit vendor selling single strawberries for $19. A full grocery haul there can easily hit $1,000. That's not a typo.

Whole Foods is supposedly cheaper now after cutting prices on 25% of their stuff, but it's still way pricier than other chains. Their organic bone broth is like $12.79 while the same thing at Sprouts goes for $8.49. Then you've got Gelson's, also in Southern California, which Consumer Reports literally gave a 1 out of 5 for price competitiveness. An organic avocado there is $3.99 when Target has a four-pack for $6.39.

The Fresh Market is another one doing the premium pricing thing - 64 oz of organic milk is $7.69 there versus $6.89 everywhere else. They opened back in 1982 trying to bring that European market vibe to America, and I guess the upscale grocery store thing really stuck around.

Food prices went up like 24% from 2020 to 2024 anyway, so everyone's feeling it. But these luxury grocery stores? They're operating in a completely different universe. Makes you wonder who's actually shopping at these places regularly.