Cub Foods ~ Other: Coborn's buys St. Cloud Cub Foods stores...

[frogmama]

Coborn’s buys St. Cloud Cub stores | sctimes.com | St Cloud Times

article from the St. Cloud Times... Sounds like these will turn into Coborn's "Cash Wise" stores. I wonder if they will close the 33rd Ave. Cub or have 2 Cash Wise stores within a mile or so of eachother.

[morneau_grl27]

This really sucks. Cashwise is not a very good grocery store. The only thing ever on sale there is their stupid store brand which aren't all that good. I will now have to try to coupon with only this stupid grocery store, a Super Walmart that's not done being built, and Target (which isn't a super Target so not that many groceries). These Cashwise stores better find a way to bring in my business or I will be a Walmart shopper (which I don't really want to be).

[Frugal_MN]

I'm sorry you feel that way about Coborn's and Cashwise. I think they're pretty good. The St. Cloud Cub never took expired coupons, so we always go to the one in Buffalo. This week, Coborns has Jello Pudding B3G3, or $3.27 for 6. I had $1.25 off 3 coupons (available in lots of places for holiday baking) and I had 10 coupons, so I got 30 boxes of pudding for $3.85. Cashwise has the best natural foods section of all the local grocery stores, and most Coborns come close. With needing to get gluten-free products, this is a "biggie" on our list. With Coborns, watch for the B1G1 deals, and match with coupons and you'll usually end up WAY ahead.

[morneau_grl27]

I have never seen Cashwise have the same money back deals as Cub did though. I used to get a lot of free or super cheap food when Cub would have their buy $20, get $5 back deals. I have never done anything like that at Cashwise. And since they now basically have no grocery store competition in the area, I'm worried their prices will jump worse than what they are. The only thing I ever see them drop their prices for is their own brands, which I cannot use a coupon on to make free. I agree that they do have a good selection of natural foods, but their pricing on them is very high in my opinion. I know Target carries some of the the same items for almost half the price. I also know the Super Walmart in Little Falls carries a nice selection for half the price as well. We are a family who lives on a very tight budget and needs to save every penny we can just to make it to the next month. It just sucks that this may become more difficult with the loss of a great grocery store.

[frogmama]

Morneau - I have many of the same feelings you do. I live in a different town now, but am very familiar with STC. I hear ya. Does that CW post the catalina signs by the foods? I've been wanting to get to mine to write down and post them but haven't had time. My store about half the time, has those signs posted each month. I've emailed corporate about them too. You may not find out about the bXgX big "umbrella" deals (like Conagra).. but at least you may be able to take advantage of product deals (like last month that General International coffees were b2g$1 cats... then I had .75 q's for them :) Yum! Good luck and Merry Christmas everyone!

[wholesalebiker]

THAT STINKS! That is my closest Cub stores are in St. Cloud..

[morneau_grl27]

I think I have seen those signs around every now and then. I wish they would post them on their site though. I like how they have their month long all natural foods posted so I can find coupons for those, but I cannot seem to find a section with their catalina deals.

I actually emailed the Cashwise corporate about the switch to see what they were all planning on changing. I was excited to hear that they were keeping the bagging the same as it is, which is a definite plus from what the other one in town does. I tried to talk them into doubling coupons, but that was a no go. I was also shocked to hear them say their pricing is lower than Cub Foods by a lot. The guy tried to tell me their sales are much better than Cub. Yeah right. Half their ad this week was, go figure, the Food Club brand. I was also sad to hear they are not keeping the Wild Harvest line, but switching to the Full Circle line. The guy actually told me they were made by the exact same company. In that case, where are the Full Circle coupons? This is what I will miss most. I could get tons of things free or super cheap with the $1 Wild Harvest coupon they sometimes had. Cannot do that with the full circle line :(

[morneau_grl27]

Found out two new things about Cashwise I am not pleased with at all.
1- They claimed they would not be firing anyone and that everyone would have their jobs when the switch happened. Not true, they fired at least three people already.
2- Cashwise's policy is "Employees are number 1, customers number 2." That's right, we're not as important to please as their employees. They would much rather see their customers get angry with long lines and no one on the floor helping find products, then have their employees work more. And they get paid pretty bad as well.
Yup, I'm so thrilled for this change.