On Sat, 03 Nov 2018 22:25:45 -0600, U.S. Janet B. >
wrote:

>On Sat, 3 Nov 2018 19:49:12 -0500, Sqwertz >
>wrote:
>
>>The convenience food business is getting ridiculous while they test
>>just how much lazy people are willing to pay for "convenience". I
>>don't know how long these have been out, but I got a free package
>>for buying some meatballs that I would have bought anyway. It's
>>about 1/4lb of pasta cooked and packaged in a hermetically sealed
>>bag.
>>
>>https://www.barilla.com/en-us/produc...sta?sort=alpha
>>
>>My store sells them for $1.68. Which comes out to $6.72/lb. Normal
>>price for a pound of Barilla dried pasta is $1.25. So that's a 550%
>>increase in price.
>>
>>Sheesh. I felt stupid jsut getting one for free.
>>
>>-sw
>I saw it on the shelf last week. Not interested

I've no home interest, of course, but convenience is in the eye of the
beholder. A food-fussy child can be accommodated easily with something
like this, and so can an office worker with a microwave or a student
away at school or anyone whose talents lie beyond even the simple
boiling of water. These people exist and since take-away meals are
becoming such a large part of eating these days, the price comparisons
do not look so insane.

Though one can easily boil up pasta and store it in the fridge for
mini-uses, it tends, without care, to get sticky, which some find a
bother, especially if it is eaten with only a bit of butter or oil or
a sprinkle of cheese.

True, and while this is the sort of product I'd walk by in the market
while rolling my eyes, I don't find it any more nutso than buying a
container of boiled eggs at the store and that seems to be a product
that has caught on. That is sort of a WTF item, too, AFAIAC.

Barilla has also put out a line of high end pastas - they refer to
them as artisinal. These are not fresh made, they are dried and
sittin' on the shelf.

Every manufacturer tries to expand their shelf facings. Ideas get
researched, R&D gets involved, taste tests are done...a good
percentage of these things vanish in market, but ya gotta give the
companies. A for effort. No one wants a static bottom line. Besides,
all that research made me a very decent living over the years.