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Grocers offer price ‘freeze’

Mauri Rapp Abington Journal Correspondent

SOUTH ABINGTON TWP. - With consumer confidence waning and the economy on shaky ground, some supermarkets are making an effort to save shoppers money at the checkout line. On January 2, Weis Markets announced that the regional supermarket chain would be enacting a 90-day price freeze throughout all stores as an effort to “gain consumer confidence and help with an uncertain economic future.” Effective until April 1, the price freeze includes more than 2,000 staple items sold at the store.

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Bill Briganti, manager of Weis Markets in South Abington Township, stands beneath a Price Freeze sign at his store.

Abington Journal/Mauri Rapp

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At the Weis Market on Northern Boulevard in South Abington Township, shelves are marked with special tags indicating which products are affected by the price freeze. According to store manager Bill Brigante, the clearly-marked signs are a way of helping customers identify cost savings. “In addition to our everyday low prices, we wanted to provide a long-term savings for customers,” said Brigante. “We wanted to go the extra mile by helping customers.” The price freeze not only includes Weis brand products but also brand names, as well as meat, dairy, produce, deli, frozen foods and bakery products. Headquartered in Sunbury, Weis Markets operates 155 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and West Virginia. Weis Markets’ Mr. Z’s supermarket chain, with locations in Tunkhannock, Scranton and Scott Township, as well as King’s Markets, will also be affected.

Weis is not the only supermarket trying to help customers save on groceries. In November, Wegmans Food Markets, which has a local store in Dickson City, announced it would be reducing prices in anticipation of lower future costs to the company. “Although our own costs haven’t yet started to come down, we didn’t want to wait before passing savings on to consumers,” said spokeswoman Jeanne Colleluori. “We can accept leaner profits if it will help our customers.” According to a press release from Wegmans, an average consumer shopping for a family could save as much as $40 to $60 each month, with prices on items that consumers buy most often lowered by 10 to 30 percent. Colleluori said that Wegmans currently has no time frame for the price reduction.

For some local supermarkets, however, the concept of a price freeze is nothing new. According to Jo Ann Atkinson, scanning coordinator for Ray’s Supermarket in Factoryville, Shursave Supermarkets have been periodically freezing prices on major store items for a couple of years now. “What we do is, we take the major items of the store and we freeze prices for a few months,” said Atkinson. In addition to Ray’s Supermarket, this also includes Gerrity’s Supermarkets, which has local stores in Clarks Summit and Scranton, as well as Quinn’s Market in Archbald and Peckville, Brick’s Shursave in Tunkhannock, and any store that carries the Shursave logo.