My original concept of this web site was to have included several video tape supplements. Where I would have taken you to some of the local tourist sites, given you a tour of downtown Fairbanks, Fort Wainwright, viewed some local housing, and then go shopping in several local supermarkets giving you a price comparison between Fairbanks and Virginia Beach, Houston and LA.

We as things "later" turned out much to my chagrin I found many supermarkets and fast-food chains were extremely paranoid about having any photographs much less video tape footage filmed on their premises. This includes even photographing their menus, seating and decor.

In their defense I will say that this negative climate is due largely to certain rouge television news magazine programs like Dateline NBC. A handful of so called local "Investigative Journalists" as well as some local Activists all of whom have been able to exploit businesses with impunity in order to promote their personal agenda's.  So sadly it seems that it is tourists and people potentially considering relocating up to Fairbanks that are the losers, by this less than frank flow of cost of living information.

So needless to say at the moment it seems like its going to be quite difficult to put together any type of accompanying video on what one might expect to see shopping wise upon coming up to Fairbanks, Alaska. I will keep plugging away on this issue prehaps in time I will gain some type of recognition for what I'm trying to do here on this website.

With all that said as things turned out I was fairly successful in being able to get for you some photos of fruits, vegetables, and national brand name food items sold up here. It just took a lot longer to get permission than expected, but with some perseverance and repeated explanations of what I was "REALLY UP TO" several managers graciously allowed me free and unfettered access to their places of business and for that I am very grateful.

Under normal circumstances I would be inclined to give personal acknowledgments and thanks those who made all of this possible, but I think I'll let that pass, at least until I get some positive feedback from their corporate offices.

You might ask well why then didn't I just write down a lot of prices and post them as a spreadsheet.  1) Credibility  2) A web site is a very visual medium so I like to use it's capabilities 3) When you see the actual items along with their prices it's so much more meaningful than reading off items from some never ending list

One final comment :  In creating these pages it was not my purpose to compare prices from one store to another, compare store inventories, or show high priced items.  What I have tried to do is give fair representation of what all is available, find items with national name recognition, as well as some every day type items people normally purchase -- in hopes that you might be able on your own to assess the price differences between those in your own community and Fairbanks Alaska.

The Prices and photos Depicted on this page were taken January 20, 2000
Produce
 

Chestnuts	Bags containing 8 lb. of oranges	Mixed nuts  (Bg apples 1.99 lb)
Hot house tomatoes from Canada	White Onions	Red Onions
Cucumbers	Bananas	Iceberg Lettuce
2 lb bags of peeled baby carrots	Head Lettuce

Meat + Freezer Goods

Some may wonder why I didn't photograph hamburger meat, steaks, chicken cuts, ribs and seafood. After thinking about this I decided that local brands, cuts, and grades of meat would not be too easy to compare with what you have where you live. So I picked some national brand items that you could easily compare their prices in your local market.
 

Breakfast links (2.89 lb)	Hillshire Farms Sausage	More Hillshire (2.98lb)
Tyson BBQ wings (3.18)	Tyson Fillets and patties	Tyson wings and chicken chunks
Johnsonville Brats	Tyson chicken lo mien (5.49)	German Brand (3.17) Fletchers (2.58)
Ball Park hot dogs	Hebrew National (4.78) (3.98)	Van de Kamp's (2.78)
Michealina's	Minute Maid (reg 1.29) (Lrg 1.87)	Michaelina's
Swift Premium

Dairy + Bread
 

Sargento 8oz shredded cheese	Fred Meyer 12oz shredded cheese	Fred Meyer 8oz shredded cheese
Milk (3.87 gal)	Home Pride 1.79	Roman Meal 2.69

Other Grocery Items
 

Kraft BBQ Sauce18 0z	Seneca  applesauce 40 oz	Fred Meyer Pickles
Best Foods Mayonnaise

Snack Foods

I think as you can plainly see where the biggest price differences are on so called snack or convienience store items.
 

Tombstone Pizza  (4.97)	These are 1 litter bottles 1.19 + 1.39	1 liter Dr Pepper (2/3.00)
Breyers 1/2 gallon (5.59)	HagenDaz 1 pint (3.57)	Dreyers 1/2 gallon (5.59)
Tostitos 4.85	Ruffles 4.59	Lays 4.87
A&W Root Beer 2 liter (2.19)	Coke and Diet Coke 2 liter on sale (1.49)

Oddly enough what I have found over the years to be pretty good a measuring stick on the cost of living in any area is the cost of a name brand 2 liter bottle of soda.
For example: In Virginia beach Coke and Pepsi typically sells for .89 cents. In Tampa that 2 liter bottle sells for .99 cents. While in Houston it sells for $1.29. In Los Angeles this same two liter bottle sells for $1.59 and up here in Fairbanks Coke and Pepsi normally retails for $2.19

Anyway in the future I hope to be able to get pricing on the same items from Virginia beach, Houston, Los Angelos, and Tampa  and from that create s series of graphs and charts to better illustrate the price differences between here and other parts of the country.

***If you would care to help out on this little project you can email me a copy of your grocery receipt with idividual items marked out so I know what's what.

  Alaskan Dreams E-mail