Are any of you Skyline students worried about saving money when it comes to buying groceries? Or, for those of you that shop at target, constantly contemplate whether to buy the house brand name, Market Pantry products rather than the regular brand name products that they sell? Well, worry no more because I struck gold with this money saving grocery store.

Grocery Outlet in South City is one of the newer chains, opening eighteen months ago, from the plethora of more than 200 chains that spread throughout the west coast. Another unique attribute about them is that they are a 3rd generation family run business. This tradition caught on to the other independently run businesses as local families run most of them. Are you wondering how they get brand name products for so cheap? Throw all your ideas out about them selling lower quality food, expired food, or the products just aren’t the same because the manager, Michelle Radcliffe, gave me the scoop to how it all works.

The reason is because they buy most of their products opportunistically. This term means that manufacturers like Kraft, for example, ships their items to a Grocery Outlet if they have a major change in the product. For example, the size of the package changes, or they mislabel the dates on the product so they ship it to Grocery Outlet and they fix the problem in their warehouse. Another way that they purchasetheir products opportunistically is by having stores like Lucky’s, Safeway, or Target cancelling their order, and having that shipped to them. From there Michelle said that they do research about every three weeks to make the price 40-70% cheaper than your regular grocery stores.

If the customer’s receipt gets chosen, they get a gift card totaling the amount of money they saved along with the cashier that served them receiving a $20 gift card. So on top of already saving money there’s even a chance to save more. He added that he frequently gets customers saying they saved way more than what they spent. Whenever a customer saves over $100 the cashier rings a bell for the store to acknowledge them with a round of applause.

Still don’t believe me? Have you still not convinced yourself to check the store out? I asked a customer, Selina, what makes her come back. Her response was because of the experience she has every time she shops there. “The employees are all really nice and always strike up a conversation with me,” she added. She also saved $100 on a prior experience and said she loves what they do after because she doesn’t feel invisible whereas at Target or Safeway most employees just walk past you pretending they don’t see you.

You’ll just have to go there and see for yourself what all the fuss is about Grocery Outlet.