The Dollar Tree Food Myth You Should Stop Believing

If you've never been inside a Dollar Tree, you may have some misconceptions when it comes to the food they offer. You may think they sell low-quality products or off-brand foods like generic tube-packed potato chips or honey-flavored O's, but no, they sell real Pringles and Honey Nut Cheerios. Dollar Tree carries name brands at lower prices by buying products in bulk, selling liquidated items, and offering products in smaller packaging. In total, they stock more than 150 name brands.

You may want to check the expiration date on some products, though, because one way the store keeps prices low is by buying items that are close to their best-by date. In fact, according to a 2019 New York Attorney General settlement, Dollar Tree was once fined for selling expired items. Also double-check the price per unit, such as per ounce or gram. Often the product is cheaper because it is sold in a smaller size, but if you look at the price per unit it can end up costing you more than if you bought it in its regular size. This is just one reason some dollar store foods should be avoided. But there are many other foods that are a good deal.

As someone who grew up on food from Grocery Outlet Bargain Market, I find some joy in the overstocked and liquidated foods. My friends knew my house as the place to get sodas you couldn't find elsewhere. Places like Dollar Tree are much the same — you can find the standards like Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Mt. Dew, but you can also find more obscure, regional, but enduring, brands like Sprecher and Faygo.

Candy and snacks make it on our list of food products you might really want to buy at Dollar Tree. They carry names you know at great prices, like a 3-ounce bag of Nerds Gummy Clusters or a movie theater-style box of Swedish Fish, each for $1.25. But they're also one of the few places you can find the old-school 1800s Circus Peanuts candy or other old-fashioned and sometimes strange candies like Mary Jane, Cow Tales, and salted nut rolls. For snacking, you can find all the standards, like Takis and SkinnyPop popcorn, that you would expect from a food store. But the long-forgotten Andy Capp's Hot Fries lives on here as well. So, when it comes to Dollar Tree, it carries both modern brand names and the brands of yesterday.