Amid still-elevated food price inflation, Stop & Shop has launched a program to give customers more time to save.
Called Deal Lock, the initiative enables shoppers to take advantage of sale prices longer by providing extended savings on selected products for a couple of weeks at a time, Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop said Friday. The program will cover both national- and private-brand items and spans all store departments and product categories.
Deal Lock items will be spotlighted in the weekly circular and in stores via dedicated endcaps, aisle displays, shelf tags, in-store radio announcements and additional store signage, according to Stop & Shop. Products discounted under the Deal Lock program are listed online at stopandshop.com/pages/deal-lock. On that page, customers also will see how the long the sale prices will “stay locked-in,” the grocer said.
The Deal Lock page on Stop & Shop’s website indicates the savings for participating products plus the time frame for the item discounts.
The first set of Deal Lock offers kicked off on Aug. 26 and include dozens of popular grocery items, such as Mott’s applesauce, Land O’Lakes eggs, Nature’s Promise ground turkey and Cafe Bustelo coffee. New Deal Lock items will be added often, and no clipping is required.
Stop & Shop noted that Deal Lock builds on its regular sales offers, everyday-low-price offers and GO Rewards in providing a range of ways to save. When shoppers use their GO Rewards loyalty card at checkout, they will automatically receive the Deal Lock prices. Customers shopping online for delivery and pickup also will be able to access Deal Lock savings automatically at checkout.
“We are proud to offer our customers another way to save on the items they want and need, especially during these inflationary times,” Stop & Shop President Gordon Reid said in a statement. “Combined with our everyday low prices, weekly sale items and loyalty program offers, we’re giving customers the ability to spend less while still checking everything off their shopping lists.”
Part of Ahold Delhaize USA, Stop & Shop operates more than 400 stores in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.
Grocery stores of all stripes have been trying to give customers price relief whenever possible as food prices continue to climb. In the July Consumer Price Index (CPI), the food-at-home index jumped by 13.1% year over year, hurdling the 12.2% increase in June and marking the biggest 12-month gain since the period through March 1979, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That food-at-home CPI has risen steadily on an annual basis since the start of the year, up 11.9% for May, 10.8% for April, 10% for March, 8.6% for February and 7.4% for January.
The month-to-month rise in the food-at-home index remained steep in 2022, up 1.1% in July after gains of 1% in June, 1.4% in May, 0.9% in April, 1.5% in March, 1.4% in February and 1% in January. The latter increase came after only a 0.4% uptick in December.