this is inflation-ary

A little background here: I eat oatmeal pretty much every morning. Most of the time I throw some apple sauce over it, sometimes I go out of my way to add some other fruit. This breakfast is pretty much a routine.

Yesterday I went to Target to buy my oatmeal with a few other items. You can imagine that when I realized my cute little 18 ounce canister of the commodity bounced up from $1.19 to $3.15 within the last couple weeks, that I was a tad shocked! Not only can you buy more than twice that much at Fred Meyer for $2.49, but the store brand now costs more than the Quaker brand by nearly 75 cents. Now, I don't work in food commodities anymore, so maybe the price of oats sky rocketed in the past month, but nearly tripling the price seemed rather outrageous!

So, I wrote a little note to the kind people at Target and received this response:

Dear Andrea,
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and feelings with us about the price of the oatmeal at our Bellingham Target store. I'm sorry to hear of your disappointment.
Occasionally, prices change due to factors beyond our control. Whenever this happens, we try to minimize the impact it has on our guests as much as possible. To help us serve you better, I've shared your comments with our Buyers and Store Operations team.
We'll keep doing our best to provide you with the value you've come to expect at Target.
Sincerely, Peggy

I'm not sure that there is a way to "minimize the impact" of a 264% price increase; suffice to say that I will find another place to buy my oats.