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Leaving the price tag on stuff


Fat Guy

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You buy a jar of mustard and it has a price sticker on the lid that says $2.99. Are you a person who removes the sticker, or do you put the jar on the table with the price tag on?

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I take price tags off gifts I give to other people -- not stuff I use at home. To my mind, if the meal is casual enough so that there is a jar of something on the table, the presence of a price tag doesn't matter. If I want condiments to look really nice, I present them in little cups rather than the original packaging. I would take the price tag off of something like wine, however, where the presence of its original packaging does not already indicate informality.

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I used to remove all prices always. Then I realized that I wanted to track cost increases, when they raise the price on something. So now I leave them on. I have not noticed that it affected the taste of anything. :raz:

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Price tag left on. When I try to remove price tags, half the time it leaves sticky crap all over the place. Once I start removing the tag, I won't be satisfied until every remenant of it is removed. This is fine for a dvd or something, but I don't want to leave food around uncovered while I'm pouring oil or whatever all over the lid trying to get the sticker off.

As an aside, whenever I find something 20+ years old, it's always cool if there's a price tag on it. I guess I should leave the tag on everything for future generations?

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I take price tags off gifts I give to other people -- not stuff I use at home.  To my mind, if the meal is casual enough so that there is a jar of something on the table, the presence of a price tag doesn't matter.  If I want condiments to look really nice, I present them in little cups rather than the original packaging.  I would take the price tag off of something like wine, however, where the presence of its original packaging does not already indicate informality.

Exactly what I do, on all counts: remove for gifts, keep for home (except wine), and re-package for fancy home meals.

David aka "DCP"

Amateur protein denaturer, Maillard reaction experimenter, & gourmand-at-large

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When I try to remove price tags, half the time it leaves sticky crap all over the place.  Once I start removing the tag, I won't be satisfied until every remenant of it is removed.  This is fine for a dvd or something, but I don't want to leave food around uncovered while I'm pouring oil or whatever all over the lid trying to get the sticker off.

Don't know if you've tried this stuff (since the objection to leaving food uncovered would still apply), but I've had success with it: Goo Gone (Found at local BB&B)

David aka "DCP"

Amateur protein denaturer, Maillard reaction experimenter, & gourmand-at-large

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I remove the price tag from some items long before actually getting home, so as not to alarm the rest of the household on what we really spent on fresh mozzarella (or raspberries, or shrimp, etc.). :rolleyes:

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Gifts and such - most certainly the price tag comes off.

Stuff at home - price tag is removed only when in a fit of nervousness/nicotine withdrawl, or if I have guest and want to put out a pricey condiment, but don't want to hear the "You paid THAT for THAT?!" stupid comments.

-Sounds awfully rich!

-It is! That's why I serve it with ice cream to cut the sweetness!

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But the peeve that is a pet of mine is price stickers on individual pieces of fruit. I remove them, sometimes with great trouble, in an attempt to maintain the illusion that the fruit is not an industrial commodity.

You're not alone in having such a peeve. I can rarely get the stickers off without bruising the fruit. They are good for cashiers who can't identify one cultivar from another (and the rest of us who, in a moment of premature senility, forget what kind we picked up), but are otherwise a frustration.

David aka "DCP"

Amateur protein denaturer, Maillard reaction experimenter, & gourmand-at-large

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You guys get price tags on your groceries? I haven't seen a price tag in a long time, it's all done with lasers! The future is now!

I actually will take a Sharpie and write the price ON bottles of wine after I get back from the store. That way when I eventually get around to drinking them, I can gauge whether or not the bottle is a good enough bang for the buck to buy again.

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I remove the price tag from some items long before actually getting home, so as not to alarm the rest of the household on what we really spent on fresh mozzarella (or raspberries, or shrimp, etc.).  :rolleyes:

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Overheard at the Zabar’s prepared food counter in the 1970’s:

Woman (noticing a large bowl of cut fruit): “How much is the fruit salad?”

Counterman: “Three-ninety-eight a pound.”

Woman (incredulous, and loud): “THREE-NINETY EIGHT A POUND ????”

Counterman: “Who’s going to sit and cut fruit all day, lady… YOU?”

Newly updated: my online food photo extravaganza; cook-in/eat-out and photos from the 70's

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I'm abit OCD on taking price tags off. Good thing that most korean grocery tags peel off quite easily. I just can't stand leaving the tags on, especially on jars of pickles, minced garlic, veggies, etc...

Doddie aka Domestic Goddess

"Nobody loves pork more than a Filipino"

eGFoodblog: Adobo and Fried Chicken in Korea

The dark side... my own blog: A Box of Jalapenos

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The only time items have a price tag is if they are from a very small corner shop or more usually an Asian food store, in which case I leave the labels on for comparative purposes. If my husband was the sort that looked in the pantry (food comes from the fridge/freezer when he cooks) then I would have to remove the labels to aviod the "how much?????" questions.

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I remove the price tag off anything that might make in onto my dinner table, or be taken out when guests are over. The hardest stickers to remove are the nice bright orange ones that say "SPECIAL" on them. Thanks for that :blink:

I only remove the stickers off of fruit right when they are going to be eaten. I've had too many pears lose their layer of skin with the label when I peel it off, and then what am I supposed to do?

Where I do leave price tags on is on my baking supplies. I like to know how much things cost when pricing out recipes, and sometimes those bills don't make it into my pricing book. It's also a great way, as K8 said, to keep track of price increases.

Don't waste your time or time will waste you - Muse

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II only remove the stickers off of fruit right when they are going to be eaten. I've had too many pears lose their layer of skin with the label when I peel it off, and then what am I supposed to do?

I, too, remove the fruit stickers carefully - but, IIRC, they are said to be edible. I just don't want to eat empty roughage, no matter how small.

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it has been AGES since I have even seen a price tag on food

If there was one on my food I do not think I would remove it ..but I dont put jars on the table I put stuff in bowls ..my mother did damage to me that way

anything else..clothing, furniture appliances cars whatever the tag comes off ...

why am I always at the bottom and why is everything so high? 

why must there be so little me and so much sky?

Piglet 

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it has been AGES since I have even seen a price tag on food

Same here. All the big box grocers don't use them. Items are scanned. I do take price labels off my wine but have held on to a few receipts just so I could remember what I paid for some bottles to see if it was worth the price paid.

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I shop at several different stores, and while it's certainly the case that the big box places don't use price tags, most of the smaller ones do. And it's not that they don't have scanners. Everybody uses scanners. But some places use price stickers anyway, for whatever reason. Belt and suspenders? Avoidance of mis-scans? I don't know.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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you know I have been looking for tags now just because I read this ..and even most of my little markets (I shop at many stores for many things) are using scanners now! I am surprised ...I dont shop at "box" stores they give me anxiety!

why am I always at the bottom and why is everything so high? 

why must there be so little me and so much sky?

Piglet 

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Stores in my neck of the woods are of two ilks. The POS bar-coded laser-scanned variety, and the weigh-it-on-the-scale-and-write-the-weight-on-the-butcher-paper type. The latter type do the multiplication when they take the cash. And no, I don't remove bar codes... unless there is a rebate involved.

Edited by cdh (log)

Christopher D. Holst aka "cdh"

Learn to brew beer with my eGCI course

Chris Holst, Attorney-at-Lunch

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