Josh Elledge - Chief Executive Angel
Cash in on the taste of real savings – just frozen!
March has some fun days to look forward to, including Daylight Savings, the First Day of Spring, National Ravioli Day, and of course, the ever-popular National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day! (I'm a big fan.) While you make plans to enjoy all the special days March brings, make room in your plans – and your freezer – for the month long event of Frozen Food Month.
The plans for Frozen Food Month this year contain radio ads, web ads, emails, social media, and even food bloggers, showing that they are really desiring to reach consumers with their “Savor the taste… of Real Food – Just Frozen!” message. Along with food bloggers, the campaign promises recipes and meal plans featuring frozen products and is partnering with big names like Mr. Food and Easy Home Meals to deliver them.
The list of big name manufacturers participating and offering savings is impressive again this year, and many offer healthy options. Beyond the sponsoring brands of Frozen Food Month, there will be numerous brands offering coupons and savings, including store brands. This year's featured brands are: Acme, Best Yet, Bob Evans, Dole, Eggo, Green Giant, InnovAsian, Jimmy Dean, Jose Ole, Michael Angelo's, Mrs. T's Pierogies, New York Bakery, Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry, Rosina, Safeway, Sandwich Bros., Totino's, and Tyson Foods.
An amazing savings opportunity not to be overlooked is that many of these brands have numerous products and product lines. That will yield many store sales throughout March.
Along with store sales, thousands of coupons will be offered for products throughout the entire frozen food section. To get your hands on some of them, be sure to pick up your largest metropolitan area newspaper the last Sunday of February, plus possibly the first Sunday of March. Why do I say that? Because smaller papers get only a fraction of the coupons released. The difference can be staggering. If you only receive a skinny coupon insert that is mostly ads, you're not getting all that is being offered. For Western Michigan, you want the Grand Rapids Press. For Eastern Michigan, you want the Detroit Free Press.
Set to be even better than the newspaper insert coupons should be the abundance of internet and digital coupons. I recommend you make sure your printer is ready, you have enough paper and ink, and your phone charged up. According to the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association, Inc. about 180,000 coupons are expected to be delivered via a mix of print-at-home and save-to-card offers for just the main sponsoring brands alone. That means that an untold – and likely humongous – number of coupons will also be released for other participating national and local brands!
What this all adds up to is the perfect time to save a lot of money buying and meal planning with frozen foods. But you won't be ready without some planning over the next 2 weeks. Odors, ice buildup, and an overfull freezer can make it nearly impossible to take advantage of deals.
I recommend 4 action items…
(1) Eat from your freezer.
Over the next couple weeks, go through your freezer now to use up already frozen products. Fire up the slow cooker, make soups and chili, throw together casseroles. Whatever you can do to free up space and make room for the bargains to come.
(2) Clean your freezer.
Remove items and wipe down the inside with 1 part white vinegar to 2 parts warm water. Follow with fresh warm water. Wipe dry to prevent excess ice formation.
(3) Buy good freezer bags.
Even though frozen items come already packaged, some items you may wish to remove from the manufacturer's packaging and repack to save space or to make the portions more practical for later. If the product already comes in a re-sealable freezer bag, I don't recommend repacking that. The bag is already specially created to be flexible while keeping the product fresh.
(4) Start thinking creatively to cook creatively.
We can get into a rut in our eating, and that can result in passing up money-savvy deals because we wouldn't know what to do with them if we took advantage of the offer. Take a few minutes a day starting today to see what kinds of meals can be made with frozen foods. You might find a whole new culinary world you never explored – and, as the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association hopes, you may start to “Savor the taste… of Real Food – Just Frozen!”
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