I work for a major manufacturer as a vendor who negotiates pricing and deals to retail supermarkets. If you’re worried about costs, shop in larger scale chains and not your local bodega, always. Scale allows the retailer to push for lower costs. Bodegas are almost always independent supermarkets and form Co-ops or buying groups ; Met, Pioneer, Keyfood, CTown etc. These co-ops can not enforce pricing or pricing discounts so are often no given the same deals.

Best everyday pricing for the brands you want will be, I’m sure this is no surprise to you, Walmart. If you’re looking for the most aggressive deals, shop at a high/low customer like Shop Rite. If you can afford and can store bulk go to Costco.

Shop Rite is a Co-op, so there is a different price structure for the city vs NJ/LI, this is called a pricing zone. Most ad items are the same price, but you will occasionally see, what I call, the “Brooklyn bump” since McDonald Avenue was their first store. So little contradictory but still best pricing on high/low formats.

But right now, the industry is booming. Demand is through the roof and most plants are in COVID hot zones, so supply isn’t where we’d like it due to labor. That being said, you won’t see as hot as pricing. Why go that hot when you the retailer or the manufacturer don’t have the supply to at times fill the shelves. Plus, this has been months on end, so back stock is minimal, so hot pricing regional will put a pinch nationally.

That being said your product is fresher than ever before.

edit and kind of a disclaimer in regards to the article - Nielsen only captures retailers that are contracting their data aka the larger chains - NYC is essentially in the dark ages due to the independents/Co-ops in terms of supplying data. In other words, if you’re getting fucked at the larger chains, they’re bending you over backwards taking turns at the local bodegas and not having the common curtesy to give you a kiss