BRYAN, Texas — As a grocery store general manager, working to save people money is how you guarantee happy shoppers. For Ann Gilmore, who has been a GM with H-E-B for 25 years, she's been tasked with a new challenge of adapting to constantly changing economic conditions that have hit shoppers especially hard.
In 2022, inflation hit a 40-year record high of 7.9%. Additionally, a new finance survey showed a 15% increase in groceries compared to last year, resulting in consumers paying 20% more for groceries.
So, how are shoppers supposed to cut costs?
National food brands like Oscar Mayer's and Velveeta have rose significantly, almost over 30%. However, with local brands costing less, we took to the grocery store to find out if shopping local branded items will help cut your grocery bill.
"We make it here in Texas, we ship it here in Texas, it's not coming across the country so that's a big savings," said Gilmore.
At retail giant H-E-B, they serve thousands of Texans with over 400 locations across the state--a true Texas staple. Gilmore said they work to provide alternatives through their own branded items to offset the national retail branded items.
"We hate to see our customers suffering and things being more expensive so we're trying to offer options as best we can to run ad items that are helpful to continually coming up with on brand items," said Gilmore. "I think we're up to 20,000 new on-brand items now. You've got Hill Country Fare, H-E-B, Century Market.."
Their list of HEB-exclusive brands is certainly extensive.
So we put the brands to the test to pack a school lunch. We rung up some bread, chips, lunch meat, peanut butter and jelly—all the lunchbox fixings to see how the price differs.
According to Gilmore, it's the small jump in prices that make a big difference when shopping for simple things. For example, a national brand like Lay's chips, costs 70 cents more than the H-E-B brand.
"With COVID and everything after then the inflation afterwards customers are really stressed," said Gilmore.
After it was all said and done, the cost of shopping national branded items was a total of $22.37. But how does that compare to H-E-B products?
$17.49.
That's almost $5 more in your grocery bill just for packing a school lunch. Imagine the price difference when shopping for a family of four. Ultimately, it's savings worth investing in when shopping local brands that often get overlooked for national brands.
"A lot of times you're in a hurry you don't have time to compare so this makes a visual difference they can see if you're grabbing the owned brand or H-E-B brand you're gonna come out better when you get to the register," Gilmore said.