So, I’m walking through Jewel and I spot an item in the dairy case that many readers have written me to say exists, yet it hadn’t hit my store… until now.
“Shopper’s Value” imitation shredded cheese.
For those who missed the news, SuperValu’s CEO has decided to take a more “Wal-Mart-like” approach to Jewel and remove up to 25% of the products they previously carried, replacing them with Shopper’s Value house brands in an attempt to “cater to women.” (Note that the Jewel stores themselves are not at fault here — they have no say in this as it was ultimately SuperValu’s decision.)
But… is ANYONE going to buy this? Especially with a Catalina sale running this week that makes name-brand Kraft shredded cheese one-quarter of this price?
$1.89 a bag for fake cheese, or .59 a bag for real, Kraft shredded cheese in a current Catalina/coupon deal.
This woman wants real cheese, thank you very much.
UPDATE: One of my readers sent this article today: Supervalu’s first-quarter net income drops 40 percent
Evidently we’re not the only ones who don’t want a store full of low-quality house brands. (The sad reality though is that these are first-quarter numbers. The house brand/Project SHE strategy is likely in response to a bad first quarter, and that strategy is only going to make things worse.)
jewelover says
I didn’t even know there was such a thing. Yuck!
I had to look online to see what it is even made of, I am dying over here. Google it:
Imitation cheese relies on a combined of casein and vegetable oil that is used instead of milk solids. Imitation cheese tends to lack the same level of nutrition that is found with real cheese or even with substitute cheese.
Because there is a marked absence of dairy products within the formula for imitation cheese, the product has very little food value. The main advantages of imitation cheese have to do with the price and the shelf life. The low cost of the ingredients for imitation cheese help to make the finished product very affordable. Also, the lack of dairy product in the cheese also helps the product to last a very long time.
Coupongirly says
I would not eat that! I would not even feel good donating that product.
btrmama08 says
Aldi’s (I don’t know if it’s still made this way because this was years ago that I bought it) had cheese slices and I thought I could substitute it for Kraft American Cheese slices. That stuff was inedible, I think it was “imitation cheese” too since it certainly didn’t taste like real cheese, vegetable oil was in the ingredients, yuck.
denisec says
Accidentally bought imitation cheese once before and used it while cooking. After taking one bite, I thought that something terrible was in my meal, like I forgot to take the plastic wrap off before cooking. It was imitation cheese. I had to throw out our meal and run out for take-out. It was a waste of money and I think my taste buds have yet to forgive me!
looking2save says
My husband bought the value cheese to make a homemade pizza (trying to save money). The cheese didn’t melt and was horrible tasting. My kids who love pizza wouldn’t even eat the pizza. I would pay extra for Kraft than that cheese. It ruined our meal!
lora3kids says
lol…yeah because we like to fill our kids diet with everything imitation. no thanks!
beb says
That is just disgusting, disgusting. You know what ‘fake’ cheese is? It’s plastic – a polymer.
Last week I bought Shopper’s Value chocolate chip cookies. Kids will eat anything with chocolate in it pretty much. My kids thought they were disgusting. I tried one and totally agreed. Disgusting. We threw the whole package away. I should have taken them back to Jewel.
This customer also doesn’t want FAKE food!
I called my Jewel this morning to complain about the Shopper’s Value food (and to compliment them on their wonderful employees. They’re pretty good there.)
Asked for the store manager and told him.
angie68@ameritech.net says
How offensive can this man be. Not to mention, what the heck is imitation cheese? After reading the rest of the comments, I will not be purchasing any of the SuperValue Brands. YUCK!
underfunded says
My 7 year old just saw the photo–his comment-
“Fake cheese? Why?”
Because Jewel wants us to shop at Dominicks or even Aldi for cheese–Even Aldi has real shredded cheese for 1.79 every day.–sheesh –or rather Project SHEesh.
Guy says
UUHHMM excuse me here, I’m a man, and I do all the shopping in my home ( because I’m single) so why not cater to men too. How about catering to humans?? How about a fake paycheck to your “ideas” department, for really being just a horrible idea on this cheese, I saw it and almost vomitted. I would never buy this crap. Kind of like imitation crab meat, who r u kidding here. Does Jewel think that only women shop at their stores. WAKE UP JEWEL and start kissing some men’s as*es, as some men are divorced with the kids, and they have to be the shopper. Start helping men out, and quit being discriminatory towards men. You must think that only men want frozen food and beer. Think again! Or in this case start thinking!! And you wonder why you are losing money. And I’m not even p&*%#$ off yet! Have an awesome day fellow couponers.
J.R. says
We wont even eat stuff like velveta or “cheese food”. Isn’t cheese food what you feed your pet cheese?
I know Jill isn’t a big fan of Woodmans, but their cheese pricing and selection is just amazing. Ditto for Caputos.
For well over a decade we wouldn’t buy anything at all from Kraft or Nabisco; even now it’s not much. Kraft owns about 200 different brands in the grocery store.
Jewel, wake up and bring back all the President’s Choice stuff you used to carry. They had a lot of really good items at bargain prices. And Jewel regularly had sales on the whole PC line, making them even better bargains.
And yes, I’m another man that does a most of the family grocery shopping, especially now that I’m the one not working again :-(
lorwagner says
So is it true that Jewel isn’t even owned by Albertsons anymore? That would explain all the new “JUNK” in the stores. What happened, why did Albertson’s sell us out???? :( HATE fake cheese and these new changes to our favorite store!
crunchsalon says
This drop in net income cannot be chiefly explained by shoppers cutting back. Food is the hardest place for people to tighten the belt. More likely the drop in net income has to do with costs related to store closures, labor costs, reserves for increased gov’t mandated healthcare charges and other OTC’s (one-time charges).
Murphwoman says
We have 2 of us at home that can’t have dairy. I would LOVE if the cheese in fact did not have any milk because we could actually eat it! There are very little meals that we love that don’t include cheese, so this may be a Dairy Allergy Dream!!
icoupon2 says
If you click on these links you can compare the nutritional information for Kraft slices vs. the Shoppers Value. They should be ashamed of themselves. 260mg of sodium in one slice??!! Granted, I’m not a person who lives a grains and tofu lifestyle by any means but this is ridiculous!
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/shoppers-value-cheese-singles-841095
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/kraft-cheese-slices-32-count-1386880
Outlander says
I feel very sorry for kids being fed this junk.
DEB0305 says
Jewel please don’t ruin a good thing. I have been a Jewel shopper all my life, I even worked there during my college years! Don’t think your shoppers are uneducated and will go for cheap over quality.
stretchingabuck says
One way to try to get corporate to listen that we don’t want/like this change is for those with surveys (the ones that print out at the bottom of the receipt with the $2 coupon, thank you very much) to answer with a “1” when asked if they found what they were looking for. Enough responses here might get the message across.