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lexabear t1_j0hattm wrote

I like these articles, but I think they did Hmart a disservice. Hmart looks expensive if you buy standard European-cuisine staples there (milk, butter, eggs, etc). If I took a shopping list that included "one whole fresh fish, 52 oz soy sauce, 2lb jackfruit, oyster sauce, 10 lbs jasmine rice" to any standard grocery store, then that store would look really expensive. Hmart (and other ethnic stores) are great at what they do (items from their cuisine). I don't buy 1 lb of cumin at Giant, and I don't buy milk from Hmart.

I understand that for these "how do stores compare" lists you have to have a standard list, and that the standard list is going to contain items that most people buy. I'm just arguing it's not a fair comparison to any ethnic store.

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munchnerk t1_j0hoy18 wrote

This absolutely. This comparison uses standard markers of inflation, which are heavily lobbied categories and mostly either processed foods or animal products - ground beef, milk, eggs, butter, etc. My household shops extensively at Hmart or Lotte because A. we cook food from my ethnic background which those grocers specialize in and B. we eat a lot of fresh produce to do so, which we find is cheapest and highest quality at Hmart or Lotte. Folks shopping for groceries at Hmart probably aren't in need of a pound of butter. They're also probably not looking to prioritize a $2.50 can of green beans, when they're fresh for $1.79/lb. I appreciate the authors of the story including Hmart but they sort of bungled the comparison.

Frustrating also that the closest thing to a veggie in the standard inflation markers is a can of green beans. There's like 5 grams of fiber in that entire list, combined. "Items that most people buy" is a pretty sad picture.

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weebilsurglace t1_j0hnle8 wrote

In the last one of these, they presented Harris Teeter as selling butter for almost twice the price of other grocery stores, but they compared a name brand at HT against house brands at the other stores. If you compared HT's house brand against Giant's and Safeway's house brands, HT was not any more expensive.

This was something I was able to fact-check on the stores' websites in less than 10 minutes. I even confirmed it in person the next day by going to my local Harris Teeter and buying butter. So I'm not sure they're interested in fair comparisons.

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lexabear t1_j0i8af5 wrote

The article did state that they were going for name-brand (e.g., Land o' Lakes Butter) specifically. I'd love to see another store-brand vs store-brand comparison list.

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Ok_Ad8609 t1_j0l7haw wrote

Came here to say this exact thing! I would never go to Hmart for this specific grocery list—like, never ever. But I love going there for spices, produce, and some other items that I can’t easily find elsewhere. And their prices on these things are very competitive. This article irked me.

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ILikeBigBidens t1_j0hw76t wrote

>We did not use sale prices or club member discounts.

I feel like this is a pretty big caveat. Even if you aren't actively seeking out deals, it's hard to have a trip to the store where your discount card doesn't take at least 10% off your bill.

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z3mcs t1_j0gkt75 wrote

I was kind of salty the new chart didn't have the old prices but the ig vid at the end was cool. Also OP when you post these articles, please post them as links rather than text posts.

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Ritaontherocksnosalt OP t1_j0hhonj wrote

I'm not sure what you mean by 'post as links' because it looks like a link in my browser. I can click it and it opens the article. I'm sorry that it didn't work for you.

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todareistobmore t1_j0hk55e wrote

Reddit prompts you to submit as a link or as a text post--if you submit as a link, it's the website link that appears in the sub feed with no text in the post, if you submit as text, you can put the link in the text, but in r/baltimore, the thread title link is to the thread itself (also, that's why there's no automod comment about the banner's paywall).

Also, z3 linked the duplicate post but yours was first, which is why the other was locked.

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earnestlikehemingway t1_j0ir93b wrote

They didn’t even look at the Latino Stores like Mega Mart and LA Mart. You can buy a lot stuff for much cheaper than these other places. It also falls like HMart that if you buy certain items that caters to their customers you can have even more savings. But the international markets tend to have lots of Meat options and at a cheaper price.

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brocialism t1_j0iefaj wrote

I'm just glad this article didn't try getting me to stop shopping at MOM's because that's not happening

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