Sandra Lee Brings Her Store-Bought Savings To TV

When discussing her new cooking show, Sandra Lee invokes the name of a personal-finance guru.

Sandra Lee on her Food Network set
“I’m the Suze Orman of food,” she says.

What matters in finance is numbers, after all, and Lee spouts a flurry of them to make her case that Sandra’s Money Saving Meals (airing Sundays beginning May 10 on Food Network) will save viewers time and money while also delivering some solid vittles. For those who follow her show’s advice, she forecasts a 25 to 50 percent drop in the average food bill.

In order to truly be a savvy shopper, the woman who has built her Semi-Homemade empire into several bestselling books, a TV show and magazine, believes it’s necessary to approach the grocery store like you would the stock market. In short, do your research.

Sandra Lee talked about what sets her new show apart, and how she became so price-conscious.

How’s the show going?

Sandra Lee: The show is incredible. There’s nothing that’s ever been on the air like this show. I know a lot of people say that about their TV shows, but we did a complete analysis on what families on the lowest income level, national average, are spending on food per week — $97 in the grocery store, $71 eating out and like $25 to $30 on snacking. We have done our complete weekly planner, and we’re talking good, mommy-healthy meals with meat in every meal. We’re coming in at 25 percent less for a total food bill with this show. I believe that once we run the numbers on the demos for the Food Network, and what the actual audience is spending, I think you’re going to see a 50 percent reduction in food bill. It’s a big deal, because people don’t realize like, just the difference between purchasing a red pepper as opposed to a green pepper — red peppers are double the price. [Or say] you’re using a Yukon gold potato at $1.99 per pound. Russets are 99 cents. It’s the same thing. You just have to know where to shop. Blueberries in season are $1 for a container, and frozen they’re $1.79, and when they’re out-of-season fresh they’re $2.99, so it depends on the time of year you’re buying. When you go to the grocery store, all of the name-brand products, your high-end, real good name-brand products are going on sale at the first of the month because that’s when everybody gets their check. At the end of the month, the store private-label brands go on sale because they are less expensive, and when they go on sale, people feel like they can spend a little more on those. So it is a real strategy, and there is no one out there really telling you what is going on. This is like for your investments, I’m the Suze Orman of food.

Has the state of the economy sharpened the focus of the show?

I presented the idea to this show to Food Network about 16 months ago, and at the time there wasn’t the need there is now. … People are really, really in need of this information, but [also] in need of a person who actually knows the grocery store well enough to tell them this information. … No one has this formula down, no one knows what they are doing because people aren’t investing. This has never been done before. This is not the Frugal Gourmet that wasn’t frugal at all. This is like, what’s the real goods and where do you get the biggest bang for your buck? You’d think that cooking from scratch is cheaper. Well, I can tell you that to buy a pre-made graham cracker crust is actually 70 cents less than making it from scratch. I can tell you to buy a box pie crust is 90 cents, and to make it from scratch is $1.80. There are some things that from scratch cooking — and we call it quick-scratch in the show — can be less expensive, so we’re doing those recipes. But they have to be quick-scratch, because it’s not just about money-saving meals, it’s about time and money. It has to give you both your time back and your money back in your pocket.

About quick-scratch — is that similar to your 70-30 philosophy?

No, that’s still Semi-Homemade. That’s your bought product, or your pre-made graham cracker crust. We are taking advantage of Semi-Homemade, of course, where it’s appropriate. For instance, pre-sliced mushrooms in the grocery store, a convenience item, they cost the exact same pre-sliced as they do whole. Why are you going to slice your own? Hard-boiled eggs, if you’re entertaining and want to make a deviled egg, pre-boiled and pre-peeled for you, are sold at the grocery store where they sell fresh eggs for 2 cents less per dozen and they’ve done the work for you. Think about that. You just really have to know — what I’ve done is completely immerse myself in the grocery store. I was already kind of the consumer advocate for what brands were smartest and best, and now I’m the consumer advocate for what’s the most price-conscious, smartest, quickest ways to get healthy meals on the table in a little time.

Have you learned a lot in the process?

I already knew a lot because my background was such where my grandmother would always clip coupons. When I lived with her when I was very young … I knew to go to the grocery store, I knew what coupons were, I knew how to shop price then, because she was doing it. I knew that on Sunday, or on certain days of the week, there were triple redemptions on coupons, so if you had a coupon worth 25 cents, if you went on a Tuesday it was worth 75 cents. So that was already instilled in me to save me money, and as I was growing up and I moved back in with my mother, and had four younger siblings, we were on welfare and food stamps, so shopping price was always very important at that stage. It hasn’t been as predominant in my personal life now, but my roots are embedded in that area, and it’s very easy for that second nature to come out in me.

What will we see you do in this show?

You’re going to see me in the grocery store, shopping price and giving you quick tips. You’re going to see cooking in the show, but I’m going to tell you in the show what the prices are, where the savings are, what the percentages of the savings are. The grocery store will be — you know, there’s different cuts of meat. Like stew meat is the least expensive per pound, you’re talking 99 cents, and we do national averages, we’re not just shopping Westchester, N.Y. We vow to do Middle America, and what’s real and who are watching. If your stew meat is 99 cents a pound, and you can save another 30 cents per pound by cutting your own cubes, think about that, that’s 30 percent. You can buy more meat. We’re going to do Round 2 Recipes — we’re not going to have leftovers, we’re going to buy a little bit more food where we’ve already done it and shot it. … You’re going to see three main courses in each show, and we’re going to also do a fourth main course, which is a second Round 2 recipe. You’re going to see that online, so there’ll be an online video component for a new recipe exclusive to that online destination just for our viewers. And I’m always going to give something that’s thoughtful that will create a special environment for your family, whether it’s messages on votive candles that are inexpensive, or using store-bought flowers with your measuring cups to get that color-coordinated theme in your house. Every single show you will have something special and meaningful that makes mealtime what it should be, because it’s the same philosophy whether you have $5 or $500 — you can make something just as amazing and special if you have a go-to sister sharing with you how to do it.

Will there be guests on the show?

My sister will be coming on occasionally, doing heirloom recipes. If you look at the national statistics, … [millions of] grandparents have moved back in with their children … The next big thing is going to be heirloom recipes. Grandparents are going to be teaching their children and their grandchildren these beautiful heirloom recipes, so my sister is going to come on — as she does in my magazine — and show you how to convert heirloom recipes into heirloom easy, called Kimber’s Heirloom Easy. So you modernize the heirloom and the tradition and you bring forward the family legacy and stories and you leave behind the expense both in time and money. You will see those beautiful heirloom recipes come to life in this show as this show matures and moves forward.

Do you have to fight the sense that inexpensive, easy-to-make food is inherently unhealthy?

You can put a granola bar and a vitamin in front of someone and say, “There’s your meal.” It fulfills all the requirements, right? No, I think that depending on who you talk to, you will get a different response from everybody. My job is to take all of those different variables and all those different kind of predetermined notions of what it should be and what it needs to be and fulfill everyone’s need and that is exactly what this show does.