The cost of convenience 4

Via Wikimedia Commons

Even people who shudder at the word “camping” (me, for instance) usually enjoy a s’more or two – or more – when the opportunity presents itself. Chocolate and melted marshmallow between graham crackers is a wonderful combination and so popular many supermarkets shelve the ingredients together in the summer.

I was in one supermarket recently that was willing to spare me the chore of putting three ingredients in my cart by selling me a kit called Smorpak. “Everything but the campfire” says the motto on the pack. Yep, for just under 10 bucks – the sign claimed it’s usually $15 – I could have s’mores fixings for four.

Curious about the price of marshmallows there, I wandered over to them and found – hanging right by the ‘mallows – packs of what I think are the best part of the kit, the set of four 30” birch sticks called Smorstix. Now I was intrigued. I went to the candy aisle and the graham cracker section and somebody wisely had the sticks hanging there too.

Let’s get out the calculator, shall we? The kit includes enough ingredients for one campfire’s worth of s’mores with four people.

Smorpak kit – $9.99
4 Smorstix
5 oz marshmallows
4 Nestle milk chocolate bars (1.45 oz each)
5 oz graham crackers

To compare the cost of buying them individually, the Nestle bars were only sold at the registers for 79 cents each. The rest of this shopping cart includes double the marshmallows as in the kit and more than triple the amount of graham crackers. The small sizes in the kit were not available.

Purchased individually – $11.33
4 Smorstix – 3.99
10 oz marshmallows – 1.29
4 Nestle individual milk chocolate bars (1.45 oz each) – 3.16
16 oz Keebler’s square grahams made for s’mores – 2.89

But for only four cents more, I could have had a full pound of marshmallows and half a dozen candy bars if I sprung for Hershey’s.

Supersize me – $11.37
4 Smorstix– 3.99
16 oz marshmallows – 1.49
6-pack of Hershey’s milk chocolate bars (1.45 oz each) – 3.00
16 oz Keebler’s square grahams made for s’mores – 2.89

Why buy the kit? No waste, I suppose. I can envision vacationers or people deciding on the spur of the moment to have s’mores just grabbing the kit on impulse. For anyone planning more than one night of s’mores, the last option makes the most sense. If the kit really does sell for $15 at times, then that seems plain old nuts to me.

By the way, the origin of “some mores” is not clear. I always associate them with Scouting, even though I dropped out when they expected us to go camping. Wiki says a recipe for them was in the 1927 Girl Scout Handbook.

For the other entries in what seems to have evolved into an occasional series, check out the Cost of Convenience archive.

Tagged as: consumerism, Cost of Convenience, desserts