Food City K-VA-T Foods (parent company) ValuCard/Red Tag Sale - what ripoffs! Clintwood, Virginia
If you have the misfortune to have to shop at a Food City (if you don't, be glad!), be careful about grabbing their ValuCard discounted items, or anything that is on a Red Tag "Sale" that week. You should especially be careful if it's not an item you use regularly - why? Because many times, Food City actually RAISES the prices of these items when putting them "on sale" for their customers!
Of course, when you look at the information on the shelf, you won't see it. They try to make it look like it is actually saving you money. Just don't be fooled.
Let me give you an example. I have to shop at Food City (they make sure that no other major grocer can locate in our town), and I regularly buy their store brand soft drinks. Because of this, I actually KNOW their regular price for these drinks: 79 cents. However, when they are on a "Red Tag Special" they sell them at 10 for $10 ($1 each for the mathematically challenged)! Their shelf signs are proud to proclaim the discount - it shows their "regular price" is $1.39 each, so it has to be saving you money!
This is just one example. It's bad enough that to get a sale price you have to use their loyalty card so that they can track your purchases and compile God only knows what kinds of information about you. Why do they think we're so stupid that we'll just believe there is a "sale" just because they say there is one?
Oh, and notice the next time you get the store coupons at the register - chances are they will be for a product you may use, but NOT your favorite brand. One of my friends and I noticed this - I primarily get Kelloggs breakfast cereals, and he primarily gets General Mills cereals. When he gets a cereal coupon at the checkout, it will be for a Kelloggs cereal; when I get one, it is for (you guessed it) a General Mills cereal! I guess Food City doesn't realize that people can trade coupons! This is just another example of how they want you to think they're trying to help you without actually doing anything to help at all.