Rotisserie chickens have been around for a while. I used to bypass them and roast my own, until I noticed something: The rotisserie chickens were actually cheaper than buying and roasting my own. 
 
 Cat Vasko noticed the same thing and decided to figure out why. The answer makes a surprising amount of sense: Grocery stores make them out of unsold chicken that is about to pass its expiration date. It's an elegant way to make a profit out of food that would otherwise be a net loss. And it's not just chicken -- according to Vasko, the ever-expanding prepared-foods section of the supermarket uses up all sorts of unsold produce and meat. It is, as she says, a bit like hunter-gatherers using every inch of the animal. 
 
 This is the sort of thing that no one talks about when they talk about innovation --and yet, it's a major way in which our economy has become more efficient over the last few decades. Reducing spoilage means grocery stores can sell us raw chickens at lower prices -- and that we can get fresh, delicious prepared food at even lower prices. It's a win for the grocer and the consumer. 
 
 So the next time you hear someone talk about the innovation economy, don't just think of Facebook or Google. The folks who spit-roast chickens, streamline factory production, or think up any of a million ways to save a little money here and there are just as important in improving our standard of living. Especially when it's five minutes to 7 and you still haven't made anything for dinner. 
 
 This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg View's editorial board or Bloomberg LP, its owners and investors. ||||| A couple of years ago, I got it into my head that I wanted to roast a whole chicken, just because. I wandered around my local Ralphs for a few minutes looking for poultry that hadn't already been turned into individually shrink-wrapped meat units before asking for help. The gentleman I flagged down blinked a few times at my question. "Um," he answered finally. "You know we have chickens for sale up at the front of the store that have already been cooked, right?" 
 
 I bought the raw chicken anyway. I took it home, rubbed it in butter and herbs, shoved a lemon half up its butt, and roasted it low and slow for the majority of the day. It turned out okay. For all the work it took, it certainly wasn't notably better than a store-bought rotisserie chicken, and with the other ingredients factored in, it cost significantly more. Right now, an uncooked chicken at Ralphs runs you $9.87, but a rotisserie chicken is $6.99; at Gelson's, you'll pay $8.99 for a cooked chicken or $12.67 for the raw version; and at that beloved emporium of insanity Whole Foods, a rotisserie chicken is $8.99, while a whole chicken from the butcher counter is $12.79 ... per pound. 
 
 In retrospect, it's not hard to understand why the fellow at Ralphs thought I was weird. But in most cases, preparing meals from scratch is significantly cheaper than buying them pre-made. What makes rotisserie chickens the exception? 
 
 Grocery Store Economics 
 
 The answer lies in the curious economics of the full-service supermarket. For instance, the Gelson's by me offers, among other amenities, a hot bar, a salad bar, a bakery, a gelateria, a full-service deli and an olive bar, because we live in L.A. so why not. But how can it afford to put out all of this food fresh every day? 
 
 It can't. Neither can Ralphs. Even Whole Foods' notoriously inflated prices don't offset that level of production. Instead, much like hunters who strive to use every part of the animal, grocery stores attempt to sell every modicum of fresh food they stock. Produce past its prime is chopped up for the salad bar; meat that's overdue for sale is cooked up and sold hot. Some mega-grocers like Costco have dedicated rotisserie chicken programs, but employees report that standard supermarkets routinely pop unsold chickens from the butcher into the ol' rotisserie oven. 
 
 Though supermarkets are loath to admit as much, likely for fear of turning off the squeamish, the former CEO of Trader Joe's cheerfully confirmed in a recent interview that meat and produce are recycled into prepared foods. And the vendor of one of the leading commercial rotisserie ovens offers, as a complement to its wares, "culinary support" that, among other things, aims to "develop programs to minimize food shrinkage and waste" and "improve production planning to optimize the amount of fresh food that is available during both peak and down times." 
 
 Rotisserie chickens aren't even the end of the line. When unsold, fresh meats, fruits and veggies that have passed their sell-by points can be "cooked up for in-store deli and salad counters before they spoil," per no less a source than a consultant to the supermarket industry. 
 
 Thinking back with horror on all the times you picked up a prepared meal on the way home from a long day of work, then demolished it within ten minutes of walking through the door? Don't panic just yet. 
 
 Safe as Milk 
 
 It's worth noting, first of all, that sell-by, use-by and best-by dates were never intended as indicators of food safety, but rather as estimates of food quality. The USDA itself says that food product dating is intended to "help the purchaser to know the time limit to purchase or use the product at its best quality. It is not a safety date." 
 
 Further, it's pretty well documented that these estimates are no substitute for boring old human discretion. Sites like StillTasty.com aim to help consumers get the most out of their groceries by educating them on the real shelf lives of thousands of foods as well as ways to ascertain quality that have nothing to do with the numbers stamped on the package. And a recent report from Harvard's Food Law and Policy Clinic suggests that because date labels are wildly inaccurate a lot of the time, they're pretty much directly responsible for 60 billion pounds of wasted food every year. Even more disturbingly (especially for we Californians), the report estimates that 25% of the fresh water used in the US is "squandered on the production of wasted food." Awesome. 
 
 In fact, in spite of their creative uses of items that have passed their sell-by dates, grocery stores are still being conservative enough when it comes to food safety to waste plenty of usable meat and produce -- around $900 million in inventory annually, according to a 2001 study. And as the Harvard report points out, major retailers aren't generally wont to take a loss, meaning their waste "ultimately could be a cost born by consumers in the price of goods." 
 
 So not only do you have nothing to fear from that grocery store rotisserie chicken, you could actually be doing a triple good deed by purchasing it -- making your life easier, keeping prices down for your fellow shoppers, and helping the environment. ||||| SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email 
 
 Amazon.com Inc. spent its first day as the owner of a brick-and-mortar grocery chain cutting prices at Whole Foods Market as much as 43 percent. 
 
 In a sign of how the retailer is changing, the Amazon Echo, a voice-activated electronic assistant, was also for sale, for $99.99 -- a sharp pivot into electronics for a company known for kale and quinoa. The Echo Dot, a smaller version, was advertised for $44.99. 
 
 The tech giant’s $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods has sent shock waves through the already changing $800 billion supermarket industry. The wedding between Amazon and the upscale grocery promises to upend the way customers shop for groceries. Cutting prices at the chain with such an entrenched reputation for high cost that its nickname is Whole Paycheck is a sign that Amazon is serious about taking on competitors such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Kroger Co. and Costco Wholesale Corp. 
 
 “Price was the largest barrier to Whole Foods’ customers,” said Mark Baum, a senior vice president at the Food Marketing Institute, an industry group. “Amazon has demonstrated that it is willing to invest to dominate the categories that it decides to compete in. Food retailers of all sizes need to look really hard at their pricing strategies, and maybe find some funding sources to build a war chest.” 
 
 Whole Foods Market is lowering their prices. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 How Amazon’s Price Cuts May Not Solve Whole Foods’ Problems: Gadfly 
 
 At the store on East 57th Street in Manhattan, organic fuji apples were marked down to $1.99 a pound from $3.49 a pound; organic avocados went to $1.99 each from $2.79; organic rotisserie chicken fell to $9.99 each from $13.99, and the price of some bananas was slashed to 49 cents per pound from 79 cents. The marked-down items had orange signs reading “Whole Foods + Amazon.” The signs listed the old price, the new price and “More to come.” 
 
 Discounts were comparable at other Whole Foods stores in San Francisco and Seattle. Amazon declined to comment. 
 
 For more on Amazon, check out the Decrypted podcast: 
 
 In the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, Catherine Oshiro, a 33-year-old product designer, said lower prices may make her change her shopping routine. 
 
 “I usually buy my staples like toilet paper and paper towels at Target and Safeway,” Oshiro said. “If I see the lower prices at Whole Foods, I would start buying those basics here.” 
 
 Katie Bennett, 24, was one of many customers who said she hoped Amazon would offer delivery of Whole Foods items. She picked out a rotisserie-cooked half chicken for lunch at the New York store. 
 
 “Last time I came in, I was thinking about getting the rotisserie chicken, but it was too expensive,” she said. 
 
 Organic Foods’ Premium Prices and Uncertain Benefits: QuickTake 
 
 Rivals Adjust 
 
 Some rivals have already reacted to the kickoff of what could become a new era of selling food in the U.S. 
 
 Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, has already invested billions into lowering prices across the board over the past year or so, and has revamped the produce section at its U.S stores, improving sight lines, adding more fresh-cut fruits and even creating a sweeter bespoke cantaloupe. That, along with an aggressive rollout of curbside grocery order pickup, helped the company record its best food sales growth in five years in its most recent quarter. 
 
 Costco, meanwhile, has a full slate of organic items that are priced about 30 percent cheaper than the same products at Whole Foods, according to Sanford Bernstein. It’s able to price lower thanks to a business model that charges membership fees, focuses on selling a limited assortment of bulk-sized goods and features a treasure-hunt experience in the stores. 
 
 The price of eggs dropped only 7%. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 Avocado prices fell 29%. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 The price of bananas per pound dropped 38%. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 Per pound, the price of salmon filets is down 33%. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 Butter prices slipped 13%. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 Whole Foods lowered beef 29% to $4.99 per pound. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 Almond butter prices dropped 13%. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 Kale prices crunched 13% to $3.49 per package. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 Rotisserie chicken prices fell 29% to $9.99. Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg 
 
 Maarten van Tartwijk, a spokesman for Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch retailer that owns the Stop & Shop chain in the U.S., said the company has invested heavily in its online operation. And Germany-based retailers Aldi Stores Ltd. and Lidl, touting lower prices, continue to expand in the U.S. 
 
 Investors React 
 
 “We have the human connection, assets, scale and expertise to win with customers and we are leveraging our deep expertise in data to provide value and build loyalty -- so we can continue to serve customers anything, anytime and anywhere,” Kroger spokeswoman Kristal Howard said by email Friday. 
 
 After falling 37 percent this year on disappointing sales and investor concern over the Amazon-Whole Foods union, Kroger stayed essentially unchanged on Monday in New York. 
 
 Sprouts Farmers Market Inc., an upscale grocer that competes with Whole Foods and is cited by analysts as a possible consolidation target, decreased about 10 percent. Shares of Wal-Mart fell 0.8 percent and Target Corp. was down about 1 percent. Costco increased less than 1 percent. Amazon shares rose 0.08 percent. 
 
 “Goodbye, Whole Foods as we know it,” Karen Short, an analyst at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, said in a note. “The conventional supermarket has not evolved much in decades. But Amazon will likely drive drastically different shopping behavior in grocery. The survival of the fittest has begun.” 
 
 — With assistance by Olivia Zaleski, Laura Yin, Alexandria Arnold, and Spencer Soper
– Those who like chicken might have noticed a seemingly weird quirk in the grocery store: It's generally cheaper to buy a fully cooked rotisserie chicken than to buy a raw chicken and prepare it yourself at home, writes Megan McArdle at Bloomberg View. Cooking food yourself is typically cheaper, so why the exception here? McArdle cites a post at KCET that explains what's going on: Supermarkets use chickens that are about to hit their sell-by expiration date for those rotisseries. In fact, they do it not just with chicken but with many of the offerings in the prepared-food department. Underhanded? No, writes McArdle. It's actually kind of brilliant. Instead of taking a loss on the still-fine food, the stores cook it up and serve it hot. "This is the sort of thing that no one talks about when they talk about innovation—and yet, it’s a major way in which our economy has become more efficient over the last few decades," she writes. The practice benefits both the store and the consumer, and it reduces spoilage to boot. Click for her full post.