Continued Testing of Archer Farms at Target

Target, partially in response to the economic downturn, partially in response to Wal-Mart, has wildy expanded its food offerings. Truly, they've managed to turn small sections of their stores into veritable supermarkets. Obviously, they skew pre-packaged food, since those have longer shelf lives, wider profit margins, and require a lower level of maintenance. But every Target has a central section that has a surprisingly large selection of fruits and veggies. Moreover, they have Purdue chicken for cheaper than anywhere else on Earth, as far as I can tell.

But it's in the freezers that Target really impresses. They have a selection of frozen vegetables, pasta, meat, seafood, and pre-made goodies that easily matches most supermarkets. Likewise for their sections of cereal, breads, snacks, and coffee.

Target's in-house, mid-range, wanna-be-organic brand Archer Farms is represented with about 1,000 products in the freezers, and I've been busily trying them all. Considering Archer Farms' high-end aspirations, many of the things that I've purchased have been rather disappointing.

First up are the frozen appetizers, such as bite-sized spanikopitas. These are almost universally too salty, and no matter the tricks that I used, they tasted like pre-packaged food. In fact, anything that was perishable, the frozen pizza, the dips, frozen desserts like the Cheesecake Bites, or Asian entrees were all overdone with one particular flavor. Most tasted acceptable, but only in comparison to other frozen foods.

Their meats, such as sausages and fish, are rather good. They taste as they should and there is nothing about them that stands out as negative. The same goes for their dairy, juices, frozen fruit, and baking mixes. In general, their raw materials seem to be of universally good quality.

I didn't try their tea, but their coffee is as good as one would expect from supermarket shelf coffee, that is, stale but decently flavorful. It wasn't a disappointment per se, since all it did was fulfill my expectations, but I still wouldn't buy it.

Their pasta sauce was a big point of hope for me. High quality pasta sauces are not cheap, with the best one, Rao's, costing significantly more than any other sauce on the shelf. A jar of Rao's can quickly eliminate much of the cost savings of having pasta at home. As a quick experiment, I picked up two jars from the shelf, Mario Batali's Tomato Basil and Archer Farms' Tomato Basil for a comparison. At only $3.99, the Archer Farms jar was half the price of the Batali brand.

It didn't specifically taste worse, but it did taste cheaper. It was closer in flavor to the lower-priced brands, but if placed among them was certainly one of the better sauces. Its smell was much less complex and enticing than the Batali sauce, and the flavor was predominantly tomato. Batali's sauce is more complex, a little sweeter, and it doesn't bathe the palate in thick tomato flavor, thus overpowering other elements. All things considered, Archer Farms is good, but I'd still either make my own, or opt to spend the extra cash on Mario Batali or Rao's.

I think that the takeaway from Archer Farms is that, if the product that you are thinking of buying is a raw material, be it meat, or jam, or bread, it will be quite good. If it required preparation somewhere, such as pizza or frozen meals, it's a total crap shoot.

Smaller Sizes Are Invading our Shelves

I noticed awhile ago that Dove bars have mysteriously lost one of the bars from the package. Where once, your ducats would have bought you four bars, the same price now only nets you three, count'em three, bars. That's a 25% drop! It's basically a trick. They're assuming that a large price increase will cause a larger drop in sales than the same price and simply putting less inside the bottle. I don't like it, but we're in an extended economic downturn, while at the same time, many raw materials on which these manufacturers rely are becoming more expensive.

GOOD Magazine and Consumer Reports hooked up and produced a small infographic showing that this event is spreading across the entirety of the supermarket. Again, I understand that inflation happens and that, eventually, the price has to increase, but I don't like it when companies try to trick me.

Dove Bars & Pancakes

Notice anything... AWRY? You can't see because they no longer show the number on the front of the box, but Dove bars only have three bars in the box. I'm not sure when they started doing this, but it has to be recent; I buy these pretty regularly. It's interesting that, instead of raising the price, they've reduced the number in the package. This is a trick that lots of companies will pull in an attempt to avoid exposure and possibly piss off consumers. I'm pointing this out not as an attempt to defame Dove but to simply hold it up as an example of the greater economy. I think that in better times, they would have had no problems raising the price.


I don't think I've ever discussed my love for the pre-made jugs of Bisquik. I don't use them, but I still think that they are marketing brilliance epitomized. Let's face it, pancake mix isn't exactly a red-hot and innovative market, so any advancements in that area are going to come from marketing. Look at it with a critical eye and it's a profligate waste, in the same vein as 100-calorie packs and packaged salad mixes. But I'm not discussing whether it's a good deal or not, I'm simply in awe of the idea.

Uh Oh, LaGasseos

Oh Emeril. You whore.

Fussy.

Who's brilliant idea was this? Huh?! Who's? Show yourself!

I don't care if you think that you might be able to make a few bucks selling this to some idiotic market for a few years before the novelty wears off and you stop. A line has to be drawn somewhere. At SOME POINT, the damage done to the soul of mankind by your product must be taken into account. Like those individual slices of peanut butter and jelly.

No fuss? What?! When the fuck did frosting become a fussy endeavor?! I don't understand what terrible inconvenience that Pillsbury is alleviating afflicts households across America to such a great degree as to require a Goddamn aerosol frosting can.

Mark my words, the ONLY people out there who will benefit greatly from this no-fuss form of frosting dispensing are stoners who now finally have something to go with their aerosol cheese and whipped cream. Fuckin' hell.