Ukrop's Thrift Ailse? What is that?

I am currently working on my match-ups for this week’s Ukrop's ad. I am hoping to have it all finished and posted either tonight or early Tuesday morning. There are lots of great sales and don't forget that they will double manufacturer coupons up to 0.99 on Wednesday only. I am planning on going to the store extra early this week in hopes of beating the crowds of people buying Thanksgiving Day goodies. This morning I wanted to take a moment and talk about a well-kept secret about Ukrop's.

Every morning - for the first 2 hours (7-9AM) Ukrop's has a section of the store in the bakery department and in the meat department cooler known as thrift aisle. (I don't know if that is the official title, but my MIL has always called it that and so that is what it gets called at our house.) The inventory will vary from store to store and even day to day. The products you will find there are items that have sell-by-dates of that day. They will have a sticker indicating that the item is 33% off the current price. When I say current price I mean that if the item is on sale that week it is 33% off the sale price. (Ex. White House Rolls are on sale this week 2/$4. If you find them on thrift aisle you can snatch them up for $1.34!) I have found items like various cuts and types of meat from the meat case, cold fried chicken, chicken salad, fruit and vegetable trays, bagels, cookies, White House Rolls, and sandwich rolls. For the most part I have had good luck with the items that I purchased. Ukrop's guarantees their products to be fresh and safe to eat up to 3 days past the sell-by-date. The few times that I have had a "bad" thrift aisle purchase I have taken it back to customer service with my receipt and explained the problem and they have happily refunded me my money.

You may also find items marked down late in the evening at some stores. When and what gets marked down depends on a few factors. Usually they will start to mark down items with sell by dates of the next day (if they don't sell that night they will be on thrift aisle the next morning, if they still don't sell I don't know for sure where they go.) I have also seen some stores on Saturday afternoon marking down things that they seem to have an overabundance of that may still have a good sell by date. I have found that when and how much merchandise they mark down varies from location to location. This is because the final decision of when and what to start marking down usually comes from that store's general manager.

Now to tie this into Thanksgiving - in years past each store will get lots of prepared foods and Thanksgiving side dishes. Depending on the inventory and the sell by dates you may be able to grab a few extra sides on Wednesday for Turkey Day or to go along with the leftovers when all of your side dishes are gone on a good sale. If you don't have any luck on Wednesday - generally the day after Thanksgiving is very slow in a grocery store so check it out on Friday.