Hannaford, you’re screwing with my breakfast

Hannaford, you’re screwing with my breakfast. It’s time to stop.

Since about, oh, say, 1985, I’ve eaten pretty much the same thing for breakfast every day. A bowl of Grape Nuts, mixed with some form of granola, Kretschmer Wheat Germ, and blueberries, raisins or dried cranberries. All these years, nearly the same thing. It’s what I want, it’s what I like.

For the past few years, I’ve used the Hannaford house brand, Nutty Nuggets, in place of Grape Nuts, which for a while were crazy expensive. In time, I’ve come to prefer the house brand. Just fine. For my granola, I came to prefer something called Chappaqua Crunch. In place of the fairly pricey Craisins, I was perfectly happy with the much cheaper Nature’s Place dried cranberries. And most essential to all this was the Kretschmer Toasted Wheat Germ. Tasty, fibery, and just about the last thing in a grocery store that is sold in a vacuum jar – every time you open a new jar, there’s that satisfying “whoosh” sound and a mini-whirlwind of wheat germ. I looked forward to that.

Years and years and years, all this came from the Hannaford. I’m not one of those people who likes driving all over creation, to Super Saver for this or Peddler Bob’s for that. I want one trip to the grocery store, some other stuff from the farmers markets, and that’s it. Then Hannaford started screwing with me.

First, Chappaqua Crunch disappeared. Or stopped being available on the shelves. It was moved to the bulk section. Okay, I’ll pretend no one sneezes into those bins and just go ahead and get a couple of pounds of the stuff every few weeks. That was fine. Then Hannaford put up a sign promising exciting new changes in the bulk section. Exciting! New! Changes! Which meant, as it turned out, shrinking the offerings by about half, and eliminating the brand of granola I favored. Okay, there are other granola options; I just liked that one. I can deal.

About the same time, the dried cranberries disappeared. It was like a miracle when the Natures Place cranberries first showed up on the shelves – they were about half the cost of the Ocean Spray brand, organic, and just perfect. Came in a bigger bag, too. So I can’t help but wonder if they were threatened off the shelves by the Big Cranberry lobby, because they’re gone, and I’m back to paying what the powers that be insist is fair for dried cranberries. I’m back to where I was, but I can deal.

But now, my precious wheat germ is gone. Kretschmer Toasted Wheat Germ, in the convenient and entertaining vacuum jar, has disappeared from the shelf, and more junk cereals have crowded into its space. It left no trace. Yes, there is another form of wheat germ in the store. It is not toasted. It is not jarred. It makes no “whoosh.” I cannot deal.

Hannaford, if I have to go to another store to get my jars of wheat germ, I’m going to another store to buy everything. That’s how it works with me. And know that I’m serious, because I HATE the other store. But if they have Kretschmer wheat germ, that’s where I’m going. Because you’ve committed several offenses against my breakfast, and, worse than all of those offenses, you’ve turned me into a food blogger. With this, I cannot deal.