Business booming at Colorado discount groceries

ARVADA - In Vermont they call them "Torn and Dent" stores. In California, there are entire chains of them. Colorado has only a handful of "discount" groceries. They resemble the little neighborhood grocery stores where your parents may have shopped.

The difference is that these stores are selling what the big chains like Safeway and King Soopers can't sell, because the can is a little dented or the wrapper is a little torn.

For bargain shoppers, they represent a bonanza. Most of the owners of the little stores are reaping a bonanza as well. They say they are seeing their biggest year of sales ever. The poor economy is sending them new shoppers every week.

Take the Dacono Discount Grocery, and The Friday Store, located in Arvada. They are "miniature" versions of your regular groceries.

The differences are that the cereal boxes are a little irregular, the floor displays are not quite as polished, some of the packaging reflects ad campaigns that are no longer running and, they're often a little off the beaten path.

"The hardest part about this place is finding it. But once it's found, it's a great deal," customer Merv Ellen Ashby said.

She's referring to deals such as European chocolates for 85 cents. That's less than half the price paid at the big name groceries. Regular size candy bars are three for $1, while they are often as much as a dollar apiece where you usually shop.

Frozen french fries sell for just $1.50 a bag.

"I think I save about 40 to 50 percent," regular Anita Conner said. "We all don't know if we're going to have a job day to day, so it's good not to spend so much on the food."

All of the products come from the same big name groceries most of us shop every week. But the big names can't charge full price for a shipment that looks like it might have fallen off a truck. Boxes of Raisin Bran have crushed corners, power bars are stacked in broken lots; shelves are lined with cans with dents of every description. Many items are a little past their expiration dates.

For the big grocery chains, it's all largely "salvage."

"A lot of the big name grocery stores will send their product to a reclamation center," Dacono Discount owner Reuben Esh said. "There, they either salvage it, donate it, or sell it back to the vendor. And that's where I come in. I'll come in and buy it at a discounted price."

Esh runs three discount groceries. He says one key for savvy shoppers is to know the difference between "best by" dates and "use by" dates.

"If it's a best buy date, the product will be good for a long time after the date that's on the product. A "use by" date usually is on cooler product or frozen product. That means you need to use it by that date or freeze it.

The unit of trade in the discount grocery business is the "banana box." At The Friday Store in Arvada, Martin Palumbo says it's often pot-luck.

"There's different varieties of products that we buy like this," Palumbo said. "General food, health and beauty and boxes of pet food."

Some of the packaging is torn. Palumbo is pricing a case of vacuum-wrapped pet food on which the wrapper has pulled away.

"That does not look very appealing when you're in a full retail store. And any customer is of course going to pass that up and get something nice and neat like that," he explained.

Palumbo says it's mostly just cosmetic damage. And he can sell it to his customers at a fraction of the retail cost.

"Here's a box of popcorn that got slightly crushed. It doesn't look very appealing but perfectly good. Here we have a can of Campbell's spaghetti and meatballs that has a slight dent on the side. And once again, here's a can of Hershey's syrup that has a slight dent on it," he said.

It's all perfectly edible. Shoppers can look past the some damaged packaging, and ignore the fact that some of the product is just a little out of date.

Palumbo points to a large bag of dog food as an example.

"This just went out of date last month. It's still perfectly good," he said.

All of it is at rock bottom prices.

"I like the surprises. You never know what Martin will have in," Ashby said.

Ashby raised three hungry boys by shopping Palumbo's store for years.

"Sometimes he gets really great gourmet stuff for less than half price," she said smiling.
"If I'm really careful, I can save maybe 50 percent."

All the discounters say: you can do the same.

Locations and hours of some stores:

Dacono Discount Grocery
913 Carbondale Drive
Dacono
303-833-5005
Monday-Wednesday and Friday - 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Esh Discount Grocery
4221 W. Eisenhower Blvd
Loveland
970-663-1883
Monday-Wednesday and Friday - 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Friday Store
5636 Newland Way
Arvada
303-422-8562
Friday and Saturday - 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

12 Street Pantry
716 12th Street
Greeley
970-356-7747
Monday-Friday - 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday - 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Robb Inc.
511 McKinney Ave.
Fort Lupton
Monday-Saturday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.