Here is how it works when something has been on the shelf for a while and you want to get rid of it. You lower the price slightly to entice someone to buy it, and…um, that should be about it. Unless you are grocer Ingles. Then putting something on clearance means raising the price per pound but decreasing the weight, decreasing the price slightly but not making anyone want to buy the chicken.

Reader Andy spotted this oddity. “Ingles supermarket seems to not know how clearance works, since they are clearing out this chicken for one cent more than regular price,” he writes. Ah, but they also don’t seem to understand how scales work, since the chicken has lost a little bit of weight since that original label was printed, even if it is wrapped in plastic. Someone needs to check the packaging on that chicken for safety reasons, the scale to make sure meat weights are accurate, or maybe both.

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