Most of what people pay for at grocery stores has to do with packaging.
Every item on the shelf has has a team of people behind its design, and they all have to be paid. This includes the marketing crew who've come up with the product, the copywriter who's put together all the text, the graphic designer who created the packaging, the project managers who oversaw the whole thing, and so on and so forth.
The fact that every person on this assembly line has to earn money for what they do is what jacks up the prices of nearly every product you see when you go shopping. How can one dodge around this? Simple. Buy in bulk.
There are fantastic bulk food stores around the GTA that are stocked full of the same quality items you'll find at any standard grocery store, only they're in bins instead of shiny boxes, and you get to choose as much (or as little) as you want. Much like how hot dogs are sold in packs of ten but buns are in packs of eight (thus requiring you to buy two packages of buns), it often seems that packaged items are doled out so they either just short of what you need (necessitating the purchase of a second package). When you go to one of these bulk food shops, you get to measure out -exactly- how much you need, and nothing goes to waste. Furthermore, because you're filling up plastic bags or containers with these products, you're paying exponentially less than you would have had to at whatever chain grocery store you normally frequent.
To help save garbage landfills from needless waste, you can save the plastic bags you use for produce when you go shopping, and just re-use them until they fall apart. When they finally are ready to be thrown out, they can be rolled into tight little balls and discarded: a far cry from the piles of packaging material that can't all be recycled (i.e. tetra packs, certain cellophanes, and the like).
Take advantage of sales when you come across them! Non-perishable items like dry pasta, rice, salt, sugar, flours, dried grains and legumes are always good to have around, and can be neglected in the cupboard until such time as they're needed, so stock up when you find a source of your favourite items at super-low cost. Avoid buying herbs or spices in large quantities unless you're going to use them all in the near future, however, as they lose their flavour and potency over time. Some people are hesitant to buy in bulk because they're averse to the idea of having a score of items in plastic bags in the kitchen, but this is where another brilliant form of re-purposing comes into play: glass jars.
Pickle jars, mason jars, jam jars, tomato sauce jars, you name it. Keep them when they're empty, wash them out, scrub the labels off them, and once they've dried out completely, use them to store dried goods in your cupboards and pantries. You can put new labels on them (even if it's just a strip of masking tape that's been scrawled on with a marker), and voila! The glass will keep the dried goods save from moisture, mildew and mice, and an assortment of pastas, grains and beans displayed in glass jars is really quite attractive.
So much time and effort goes into manipulating people into buying things because the packaging looks "cool": those graphic designers are constantly being told to make things pop in order to catch people's attention and make them gravitate toward a particular brand just because the item is wrapped in a colourful package. Ignore the flashy wrapping, go for what you need. If you happen to need several scoopfuls of chocolate covered almonds, that's perfectly alright—there's an empty jar at home just waiting to hold them.
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