$8.50 for a loaf of bread

[Anonymous]

It's mostly price gouging.

Congresswoman Katie Porter raised this point recently: https://news.yahoo.com/ripped-off-katie-porter-price-010401178.html

[Anonymous]

I’m not in DMV but $8 for organic bread is standard. It used to be $5.99 and now it’s $7.99

[Anonymous]

I'm stuck on that you use brioche for your French toast. I use a thick white bread.

Is brioche (used instead of white bread) much better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But, isn't that why people go to Whole Foods? I thought people go there to show your status (i.e., I got money to waste).

Weirdly it’s got the best sales on good meat and produce. Always has - decades ago in law school we’d walk to like 6 grocery stores to save money and WF always had cheap meat that was actually still good for several days.

+1, the only place where I find better deals on produce is TJ’s and WF quality is better. Meat is about the same as other stores but quality is better. And then throw in the “365” brand on a lot of basic staples like canned goods, and WF is often less expensive with higher average quality, than the Harris Teeter or Giant near my house. The store is also more convenient because it has a better layout, and it has more pleasant lighting.

WF affords all this by charging people an arm and a leg on all their prepared foods (WF hot bar is a cafeteria where every plate of food costs $40) and carrying some items that have a very high retail price (expensive cheese and wine, specialty olive oils, random organic stuff from small batch producers). Since the price is already high, the standard non-gouging markup is also high, so their margins are better than a grocery store that doesn’t sell those items and whose customers are unlikely to buy them.

However, $8.50 on a load of store brand bread, even brioche, doesn’t really fit that framework. It is gouging, or at least testing the market to see what it will bear. Another thing WF does on non-staples, especially bakery items, is not display prices prominently unless it’s a deal. So it’s easy to get gouged on those items if you don’t pay attention because they are, in fact, trying to trick you into throwing it in your basket and testing to see if you notice. I think it’s especially devious because with inflation, shoppers are used to seeing the total cost of a cart of groceries creep up, so you could double the cost of brioche and many people would notice at first because their groceries are ringing up at $84 versus $80- they’ll assume it was marginal price increases on a bunch of items. Not a single item doubling. The people who notice will be the ones getting 3 items and doing a double take when it rings up for more than $20.

This is excellent analysis

[Anonymous]

This is NOT price gouging. You can’t price gouge on an optional luxury item.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm stuck on that you use brioche for your French toast. I use a thick white bread.

Is brioche (used instead of white bread) much better?

No. It isn't. French toast is a recipe meant to salvage stale bread. It isn't supposed to be made with anything expensive. The whole point of the recipe is thrift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was over $11 in Hawaii a few weeks ago when I visited. I almost passed out.

I passed out frequently in Hawaii and I wasn’t swooning over the natural beauty.

[Anonymous]

Dang. My gluten free bread is not even that high....yet!
Time to buy other types of bread or none altogether.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm stuck on that you use brioche for your French toast. I use a thick white bread.

Is brioche (used instead of white bread) much better?

No. It isn't. French toast is a recipe meant to salvage stale bread. It isn't supposed to be made with anything expensive. The whole point of the recipe is thrift.

Disagree. French toast is best when made with a brioche or challah -- enriched breads with a close, cake-like crumb, and few air pockets. Thick white bread will often work fine but test the firmness -- if the bread is insufficiently firm, it will not hold up to the coating and your French toast will be soggy and flat.

An Italian baguette can also suffice, but I prefer brioche or challah because it's slightly sweet and this allows me to put less sugar in my egg mixture.

Most commercial breads don't go stale quickly enough (too many preservatives intended to keep them soft and mold free) and bakery breads without the preservatives will get mold too quickly to properly dry them out, so I wouldn't not simply used day old bread for French toast, even though yes, that was originally one of the reasons the recipe was invented. But if you want to *perfect* the recipe, a good loaf of brioche or challah is best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is my recipe for brioche:

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/brioche-recipe

This is not an $8 recipe. They are not called whole paychecks for nothing! I see it is price gouging, even though prices have gone up.

Op, this is an easy recipe and I think you should give it a try. You’ll like it much better than storebrand, and it will save you a lot of money..

OP here and thank you for this. I've got a good challah recipe I like but have never tried making brioche -- they look pretty similar. I'll give this one a try this weekend! I like the King Arther recipes -- I've made their Detroit-style pizza and their baked donuts and been really pleased with the results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I just got a loaf of brioche for french toast for about $3.50. I think I got it at Harris Teeter, and it was on sale. >$8.50 is crazy and an insult to consumer pocketbooks. There's a reason Bezos is a billionaire.

cause some people are dumb enough to pay $8.5 for brioche.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Or simply have more money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Buy a bread machine

Brioche is still time consuming in the machine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my recipe for brioche:

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/brioche-recipe

This is not an $8 recipe. They are not called whole paychecks for nothing! I see it is price gouging, even though prices have gone up.

Op, this is an easy recipe and I think you should give it a try. You’ll like it much better than storebrand, and it will save you a lot of money..

OP here and thank you for this. I've got a good challah recipe I like but have never tried making brioche -- they look pretty similar. I'll give this one a try this weekend! I like the King Arther recipes -- I've made their Detroit-style pizza and their baked donuts and been really pleased with the results.

I’m happy my comment helped! I have been meaning to try their Detroit style pizza.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm stuck on that you use brioche for your French toast. I use a thick white bread.

Is brioche (used instead of white bread) much better?

No. It isn't. French toast is a recipe meant to salvage stale bread. It isn't supposed to be made with anything expensive. The whole point of the recipe is thrift.

Disagree. French toast is best when made with a brioche or challah -- enriched breads with a close, cake-like crumb, and few air pockets. Thick white bread will often work fine but test the firmness -- if the bread is insufficiently firm, it will not hold up to the coating and your French toast will be soggy and flat.

An Italian baguette can also suffice, but I prefer brioche or challah because it's slightly sweet and this allows me to put less sugar in my egg mixture.

Most commercial breads don't go stale quickly enough (too many preservatives intended to keep them soft and mold free) and bakery breads without the preservatives will get mold too quickly to properly dry them out, so I wouldn't not simply used day old bread for French toast, even though yes, that was originally one of the reasons the recipe was invented. But if you want to *perfect* the recipe, a good loaf of brioche or challah is best.

We made it with the WF croissant bread. It was amazing! Worth every penny for a holiday brunch. However, for a regular Sunday, the brioche loaf from Giant is good. We even learned that our local International Latino/African/Asian market has good brioche.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I just got a loaf of brioche for french toast for about $3.50. I think I got it at Harris Teeter, and it was on sale. >$8.50 is crazy and an insult to consumer pocketbooks. There's a reason Bezos is a billionaire.

cause some people are dumb enough to pay $8.5 for brioche.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Or simply have more money.

.. to help enrich Bezos. That was the point.

Don't get me wrong.. I love Amazon. I just bought a lot of stuff from them for xmas, but I would never pay $8.5 for brioche. My DD loves brioche, and we get ours from TJ for $5. But, that's my limit.