A strange picture appeared in a Reddit forum Monday showing off some super healthy food on a grocery shopping trip. Scrambled eggs cost $2, bananas were 69 cents a pound and fresh berries were 22 cents a half-pound. But — wait for it — a box of cereal cost 99 cents, a bottle of soda was priced at $2.49 and the carrots cost $4.99.
The image went viral and many Redditors wondered what the 3.9 percent price of premium fruit and yogurt could mean for other consumers. Others — like a mom-of-four named Tiffany — noted that prices had gone up in Canada while the dollar remained strong for Americans.
Her plan for grocery shopping in the future was to “take the fruits and veggies that I cannot get at home and just order them online, then go out with a bunch of people and fill our drinks, and then finish it off with some candy or crackers.”
This isn’t the first time a grocery chain has played the price game. For an online grocery service called Peapod, stores in two locations in the Los Angeles area have displayed online prices from just outside the store’s door for the previous weekend. And Metro PCS sold a flat-rate monthly plan for $50 this year, but in exchange the company committed to leaving an extra 12 cents on each phone bill to help subsidize the price, USA Today reported.
The reaction was not universally negative. Many users on Reddit pointed out that even with the grocery price jump, U.S. supermarkets are still cheaper. “I think 99 cents might be something to get used to but 99 cents makes sense for the dollar store,” said, osencloud.
Others pointed out that apples, oranges and bananas were simply more expensive in Canada. “There is one point of order,” xldback wrote. “It is totally ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous for you to compare apples to bananas. In Canada, oranges are far more expensive than bananas and apples are far more expensive than bananas.”
The price debate continues.