What's the difference between 16 oz beef and a pound of beef?

 

There literally is no different between 16 ounce of beef and a pound of beef, they are the same measurement in describing the amount of beef in two different ways.

The Fry's picture shown above on the left, describes 1 lb roll of ground beef.  The Smith's picture shown on the right, describes 16 oz roll of ground beef and they are both 80% lean.

Fry's and Smith's are both Kroger stores but Smith's is in Las Vegas and Fry's is not.  The food prices at Smith's is almost higher more than the food prices that Kroger charges in California.

The only state that I've been to that has food prices that are significantly higher than California is the state of Hawaii.  Whether you are dining out in Hawaii or shopping at the Safeway in Hawaii, the food prices are over the top high but Hawaii has unique circumstances there that makes a gallon of whole milk cost $9.  If Kroger was in Hawaii, they'd be charging $18 for a gallon of whole milk because they can.

This is what Kroger does as a company - the 16 oz roll of ground beef is programmed into their registers for select states and it's always going to be cheaper in those states.  The states that have the 1 lb roll of ground beef, i.e. California or Las Vegas, Nevada, the pound description is programmed into our registers at a higher price. Therefore, you cannot override their system and add the $2.99 roll of ground beef to your account in California nor Las Vegas.

If you go into the Ralphs app, you'll see that the ground beef is listed, when you do a search, as pounds.

Albertsons/Safeway has never done such elaborate changes to measurements in order to charge certain states more for food.

Politically, Kroger does not like the state of California because they want to be able to exploit their workers by paying them minimum wage and raise food prices for consumers.