...line up the decimals...
$18.94 for a POUND of coffee? (Not a math major. And no, they did not display the price of it anywhere.)
It's certainly not the rumored-to-be-orgasmic $40/Lb. Geisha Blend coffee, so why so pricey? Wait. Observation: I'm used to paying $12.99 at most for a "pound' ...maybe $13.50 with tax or whatever. This bag 'o' beans is a refreshingly full 16 oz. Still pricey even at that weight but it reminds me - in other stores, the average "pound" has magically lost 4 ounces. I wish my weight had pounds that were 4 oz short..I'd be 52 Lbs lighter!
Doing some more math: Say you buy a real 16 oz. pound at $10 each per month. That's $120/yr for 192 oz. total with a price per ounce (PPO) equaling $0.63. Taking out the 4 oz. but keeping the $10 price tag, you get a PPO of $0.83, up $0.20 per ounce...and you only get 144 oz. Which, assuming you didn't change your consumption levels any, means you would have to purchase 3 extra (16 oz.) bags ...for a total of $30 more of coffee just to get through the year! Irritating! It's taken me some time to notice, but everywhere I go (except Starbucks, which is really only a last resort for me) it seems the pre-packaged bags of coffee beans - ground or whole - are latching on to the 12 oz. trend.
Can we live without coffee? No of course not. The sellers (distributors?) have us hostage of sorts. This whole scenario is reminiscent of that marketing case-study where Tampax started selling 32 ct. tampons in a box for the same price as they originally offered 40 ct back in 1991. The backlash and boycotting was so vicious/effective, the 40 ct. boxes were back on the shelves in months. Okay, perhaps not the best analogy, but it feels about the same, where the customer winds up getting the short end of the...deal.
Where is the rebellion though? Clearly I'm not the only one noticing this trend, but why are more people not complaining about this?
Probably for the same reason the craft ale/cocktail industry can charge so much, and why wineries with grape-juice crap wine can charge ridiculous fees for tastings. Why everything is free-range and house-made: hipsters and soccer moms. Maybe not. Maybe it's more complex than that but it's downright irksome and it's a little surprising we don't have a little more Boston
This is perhaps yet another reason for me to make the switch to tea.
</rant>
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