*Hanover's Ivory Tower Prices Come to Town

Letters to the Editor

The Valley News  (word count: 267)

Dear Editor :

I write for every citizen in White River Junction on a modest or fixed income.

When a Hanover grocery store announced a year or so ago that it was moving to the bankrupted and vacant grocery store building at the main intersection in White River Junction, I was skeptical and wrote the Valley News saying Hanover prices simply wouldn’t  be acceptable  in a non-ivory tower town.

I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that the transplanted store from Hanover has had  prices which are not that  much higher than other stores and are well worth paying for the convenience of not having to drive five miles.

Pleasantly surprised that is, until today.

Suddenly items I purchase every week have risen from between 20% and 37%  . For example:  a spinach salad rose from a reasonable $4.99 to dubious $5.99; a turkey pot pie from an already expensive $7.99 to an outrageous $10.99.  This latter increase of $3.00 (more than one third of the original $7.99 price)  is even more exorbitant than the 25% increase in gasoline prices America has endured over the last year.

Please tell me if I am wrong, but I do not see any 20% to 37 %  increases in inflation in the economy at large. 

Unless the products are being delivered in gold-plated trucks, the average Joe and Jane in White River Junction is being squeezed by this transplanted Hanover store which now has its hands around our neck as the only large grocery store within five miles of the center of our small town.

I am afraid my original fears about ivory-tower prices in a working-folks’ town have been realized and the reason is not inflation.  It is greed.

Paul D. Keane