So are you like me where your mind is always looking at pricing and doing the math? My apologies if you are—drives my wife crazy whenever we’re shopping as I keep looking for pricing anomalies and feel compelled to point them out. Even though I know she doesn’t care.

Here’s a fun one I saw recently as I was shopping for shredded cheese at my local King Soopers. I like Kraft sharp cheddar cheese. I use it in when I cook up my favorite breakfast—eggs with onion, cheese and salami; and my 17-year daughter just eats it right out of the bag. I’m walking down the aisle with the cheese and there it is—16 oz bags for $5.89 and 8 oz bags for $2.99. Quick math shows two bags of the 8 oz would be $5.98. So I save a dime for buying the bigger volume bag, and I feel good that my carbon footprint is lower since the packaging is less.  All is right with the world.

But wait. These items are on special. $4.99 for the 16 oz bag and $2.29 for the 8 oz bag. That’s $4.58 for two 8 oz bags—a savings of 41 cents! I’ll say it’s a savings of 8.2% which sounds a whole lot better (I did that calculation with Excel when I got home, not in my head at the store).

Why is that? I doubt it’s an intentional strategy—probably just somebody in a decision-making capacity who isn’t as numerate as they should be.  Or are they practicing a form of revenue management? Maybe they have a surplus of 8 oz bags and need to sell them before their expiration date?

Why do you think they did this? I really don’t know. I’ve submitted the question online on the www.kingsoopers.com website. I’ll let you know if they respond.