Lucky’s Prices Lowest, Ads Misleading, CalPirg Says

For the second year in a row, Lucky Stores was San Diego County’s lowest-priced supermarket chain, according to a survey released Wednesday by the California Public Interest Research Group.

CalPIRG officials hastened to note, however, that they plan demonstrations against Lucky Stores for what they consider misleading advertising over the testing of pesticides used on produce.

Pamela Allen, local director of CalPIRG, convened a press conference Wednesday to announce the findings of the 28th survey in 15 years and to criticize Lucky Stores as “the low-price misleader.”

‘Program Full of Flaws’

“The survey covers price only, and Lucky turned out to be the best,” Allen said. “The pesticide issue just happened to come up at the same time. We consider it a serious consumer and environmental issue.

“Demonstrations have been going on statewide and will continue. They’re telling people they have a special testing program when it’s the same governmental program used by all the others.

“It’s a program full of flaws and data gaps, failing to test pesticides that may cause cancer and birth defects,” Allen said.

Lucky Stores is known formerly in San Diego as Food Basket Food Centers. Low prices are a staple of Lucky advertising as, recently, is its use of testing by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. But the testing, according to CalPIRG, “monitors raw produce for less than 50% of known cancer-causing pesticides.”

Judy Decker, a spokeswoman for Lucky, said from her office near San Francisco that CalPIRG’s criticism on the pesticide issue is uninformed.

She said Lucky considers the pesticide testing by the Department of Food and Agriculture far superior to that of any independent tester.

‘It’s the Best Method’

“It’s the best method of testing based on today’s technology,” Decker said. “That’s what we say in the ad, and that’s true. Nobody’s saying it’s the end to all programs. Not even California Food and Ag says that.

“We believe it’s to the benefit of growers to reduce pesticides,” Decker said. “We also believe the state’s helping to bring that about--and, in fact, more so than any state in the country. Its testing is better than the (federal) Food and Drug Administration.”

By pricing 115 items in 17 stores in the county, CalPIRG found that Lucky offered the lowest overall prices as well as the lowest prices for meats, dairy goods, grains and staples. Vons offered the lowest prices for produce. Ralphs offered the lowest prices for processed foods and non-foods.

The survey listed the order of lowest-priced stores as follows: Lucky, Vons, Ralphs, Big Bear, Alpha Beta and Mayfair. It concluded that $100 worth of groceries bought at Lucky could be purchased for $102.52 at Vons, $104.51 at Ralphs, $107.74 at Big Bear, $108.17 at Alpha Beta and $124.64 at Mayfair.

Asked why Lucky’s prices are the lowest, CalPIRG’s Allen said it may have to do with not offering double coupons, “which adds to the price at other stores.”

Allen said CalPIRG’s testing took place entirely on Oct. 15 and was staffed by volunteers.

“In the past, we’d used 50 or 60 volunteers,” she said. “Now we’ve cut the number down to people we specifically trust--people we work with or people we know. In the past, we did have problems with infiltration.”