Looking for that lost product!
Check out our list of discontinued and renamed favorites.Looking for that lost product!
| You've got your 1949 Frigidaire, your squatty Wedgewood gas stove, a flickering black-and-white Carlson TV playing 40-year-old commercials and pantries full of foodstuffs that you haven't seen since you were back in Peoria in pigtails or Syracuse in short pants. |
Missing your My-T-Fine pudding, Skybars or Walnettos?
We're often asked "why can't I find this product anymore?". There are many reasons a product becomes scarce - lack of shelf space at your local grocer, not a big seller in your area, item is seasonal in nature, product is only produced sporadically making it hard for local grocers to stock on a regular basis. Most local grocers want to sell you new, Bigger, best - those items being promoted by big name manufacturers with the advertising muscle to consume the shelf space in your store. The products we carry may come from small manufacturers with limited distribution, or items that are very regional in nature (coffee syrup, abba-zaba bars). But we also carry some big names - Nabisco, Betty Crocker, Quaker - we just specialize in the flavors/brands that seem to never make their way to the shelves. All products have one thing in common - YOU'VE REQUESTED IT! |
Because of the scarcity of some of these products, we may occasionally be out of something or may have a longer wait for our shipments than you would expect. Orders currently ship within 10 business days. We will do our best to serve you on a timely basis
In addition to fulfilling your "hometown favorites", keep us in mind for 40th and 50th birthday parties, '50's and '60's themed parties, and all holidays. Opening a box of foods you grew up on and haven't seen in years is sure to put a smile on anyone's face! Our products are available for corporate giveaways, promotional tie-ins and resale. Please call for large quantity (over $500 order) pricing. Our office is open from 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday, and Saturday mornings during the holiday season. We accept Mastercard, Visa and personal checks. Our products are available only via mail order and internet service. Go ahead ... browse, reminisce, enjoy!
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We are a small,
corporation determined to give you good value for your dollar. We recycle all boxes and shipping materials we receive and your order most likely won't arrive in a fancy box. We guarantee our products to be fresh and to arrive in good condition - and hopefully as good as you remember them! 1445 Miller Store Rd
Virginia Beach, VA 23455
Customer Service: (888) 694-2656 Fax: (757) 460-8859
Questions or comments please contact
info@hardtofindgrocer.com
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you ship to Canada?
We ship around the world. Just complete your order on-line. You will have an opportunity to cancel your order if the charges are prohibitive. Anticipate that shipping charges outside of the US will begin around $30 US.
How
do I track my order?
For UPS orders, please click here to check the status of your shipment. You will need the tracking number that we emailed you when we shipped the order.
U.S. orders are typically shipped within 24-48 of their receipt (weekend orders will ship the following Monday/Tuesday) and your delivery time is based on the shipping time as dictated by the carrier you selected.
Canadian/International orders will take longer to ship and arrive. In order to receive tracking information you can log back into your customer account information.
If you didn't receive your shipment confirmation email with the tracking number and you believe your order should have arrived, please email us at info@hardtofindgrocer.com
Where do you get this stuff?????
Probably the number #1 question we get asked! Our products are "hard to find", not "no longer in production". All of the items we carry come direct and fresh from the manufacturer. If a manufacturer has stopped producing an item, we do not try to track down someone else's unsold product, as we cannot verify freshness. If we carry it, it's still being made.
Hard to Find Grocer
1445 Miller Store Rd.
Virginia Beach, VA 23455.
Why can't I find this locally?
Local grocers are limited by space, availability from their distributor and consumer demand. We're not. Since we don't carry all of the every day food products you can get locally, our warehouse space is devoted to your "hard to find" favorites. Very few of our products come through distributors, so we're not restricted by what our local distributors have to offer. We purchase direct from the manufacturer, wherever that may be, and have it shipped directly to our warehouse for distribution. Lastly, our entire product line is based on consumer demand; you tell us what you want and we get it! Since our customer base is nationwide, we may have a lot more people looking for My-T-Fine pudding than we would if we were just offering this product locally.
How do I get a manufacturer to resume production on a product I love, but has been discontinued?
Easy. Just get about 10,000 of your friends to join you in an e-mail campaign to the manufacturer and plead your case. Let us know how it goes.
Actually, the manufacturer has thought long and hard about discontinuing your favorite product and the most likely reason is that there weren't enough of you out there buying this product to make it profitable. There may also be production issues involved - production equipment that has become too old to fix, to expensive to retool, etc. Discontinuing an item is not done on a whim and products that are subsequently recessitated are few and far between.
OK, I've found the product I've been searching for forever, but I don't see any shipping charges.
Shipping charges are based on weight and distance and will calculate at the end of your order. You will be offered several methods of shipping and advised of their applicable charges. You will have an opportunity to not complete your order if they are not to your satisfaction.
How do I find a food product I don't see in your store?
If it's not on our "Boy, they were good" list of discontinued items, we'll be happy to search for you. Just drop us an e-mail. We typically have about 1000 items on our "Things to Find" list at any one time so it may be a while before we get you a response. If the product is still in production and we are receiving lots of requests for it, it may be on our aisles before you know it.
Although some things we know by heart because we've been asked so many times ("where's that candy bar that was braided and chocolate and caramel and had a red wrapper?"), we really need the name of the product to try to track it down (the Marathon Bar).
Are your products available wholesale?
No. We try our best to offer all of our products at competitive prices. Unfortunately, that leaves no room for us to further discount our products to a select few. That said, we do offer a small discount on volume orders over $500, on the cost of product only (not applicable to shipping charges).
Can I come visit your store?
We're sorry but we don't have a retail outlet at this time. Our warehouse in Virginia Beach is not open to the public. We do offer some of our candies in the Slugger Sweets box available at Minute Maid Park (home of the Houston Astros) and should have more candies available at ballparks around the country in the future. In the meantime, you can order by e-mail, telephone, fax or snail mail.
UPS GROUND APPROXIMATE DELIVERY TIMES:
