A couple of months ago, Grocery Outlet opened a branch in San Leandro, just across the street from me. I've blogged about it before, in my food blog, but I'm writing about it here because the store sells non-food products as well. As you could expect, it sells beauty products. What has surprised me is the number of brand-name products it sells. And not just your regular, supermarket brand-name products, but the more exclusive, expensive ones. And of course, they are sold at considerably lower prices than at the supermarket/drug-store. And indeed, some of this stuff you can't even get at regular stores. I'm impressed.
For the last few days I've been looking for biodegradable sunscreen to use in Mexico - the regular stuff is bad for the coral reefs. I couldn't find it at Safeway, Longs or Target - but they have it, along with other natural sunscreen and regular lotions, at Grocery Outlet. The sunscreens they have are from Alba Botanica, and they are all-natural without chemicals. Pretty cool. I forgot how much they were, but less than $3. They had a few varieties. They also have Aveeno sunscreen, for $5 for 4 oz - I think it was $9 at Target. I'm not sure that this one is biodegradable, however. I also saw some Jason Tea Tree Scalp Normalizing Shampoo, which sells at Target for about $10, for about $4. But you can't count on them having a specific product, they often get just one shipment of a product, and when it's gone, it's gone. But chances are, they will replace it with yet another high-end product.
As for food, they sell Harris Ranch beef, but only Tyson chicken, which I won't buy because of their history of torturing chickens. I haven't seen Twinnings tea yet :-(, but they have/had Good Earth - which you can accompany with some Walkers Stem Ginger and Lemon Cookies ($1.50!).
It doesn't pay to go to Grocery Outlet to buy a specific product, it may very well not be there, but I think it's worth it to browse there once in a while to see if something cool has come. Just make sure to grab it immediately, as it won't be there on your next visit.
Grocery Outlet
2179 E 14th St
San Leandro
(510) 895-3605