My new obsession: smart grocery bags that attach to your shopping cart for easy sorting

It’s rare that I see something in the grocery store that makes my heart scream with unbridled capitalist desire. Yes, both vintage and Fine cheese Sometimes the sections have fun discoveries, but other than that, there are only so many ways to remix the food canon.

It wasn’t an edible thing that caught my attention recently, but rather an ingenious piece of infrastructure. They were actually brightly colored packages, but not in the processed food section or produce aisle. I spotted them in a fellow shopper’s cart: Four colorful shopping bagsOne is insulated, designed to fit in a grocery cart, with drop handles that keep it open and in place while you shop.

basic. genius. How did I not realize these were missing in my life?

Sure, the rainbow colors were what caught my attention here, but once my brain processed what I was seeing, it was my Type A heart that decided I had to have it. (I excitedly stopped the owner to ask if I could take a photo, as if they were a quartet of puppies and not shopping bags.)

Certainly, for a highly organized and competitive personality, efficiently sorting one’s groceries into one’s shopping bags while browsing the well-stocked aisles is as much fun as one can have in the grocery store outside of competing in Supermarket Sweep. (Spice rack, you idiots! Go to the spice rack!)

Bags designed to organize your grocery cart in real time

There are plenty of reusable grocery shopping bags that are sturdy enough to fit inside your shopping cart, but to maximize space and organization, look for ones called “cart bags,” “cart boxes,” or “cart bags,” which also offer the added benefit of making grocery shopping feel more like a fun outing than just a weekly chore.

There are many designs and layouts here to choose from: some have retractable camper handles, some have separate removable clips, and others have spikes that hang over the sides of the camper, which are then stored in what looks a bit like a tent roll. (Again, adventure, not boredom.) Not every set comes with an insulated bag, and some brands feature bags that are all the same color. (Presumably you’re not attracting the attention of people like me who treat the grocery store as a fact-finding mission.)

You do what you want with these various options, but here are several sets available on Amazon, in the $30-$40 range:

Sort as you shop

Your kitchen pantry, like mine, may not have been designed exactly with grocery aisle layouts in mind. Things that sit side by side on retail shelves often live in opposite corners in real life. “Snacks,” for example, are placed on different shelves in my kitchen based on factors I don’t know you well enough to reveal here.

Maybe you resent cleaning products sharing bag space, or even cart space, with fresh produce. You probably have multiple errands to run when you’re grocery shopping, and wonder about the condition of your refrigerated or frozen items once they leave the store. These bags create order for all the potential chaos, whether real or imagined.

The real beauty of these bags is that you can sort your purchases in real time, according to whatever system works for you. (See “Snacks” above.) This is also the argument for multi-colored bags, which allow you to assign groceries to their appropriate bags, saving you time in the stocking phase of grocery shopping.

I’m sure I don’t need to point out that these are also eco-friendly, if you’re not already in the reusable grocery bag game. A custom vented bag for all your products may eliminate the need to wrestle with a roll of uncooperative produce bags in the aisle. Safe in their color-coordinated area, the lettuce and broccoli crowns won’t mix with anything you don’t want them to touch.

Use it with on-the-go scanning applications for maximum efficiency

Checking and repacking your groceries becomes more rational when everything is already sorted in a “like with like” format. I realize this only represents minutes of your life, but for many of us, those minutes add up, not even over a lifetime but over the course of a day, and a little extra sanity can go a very long way in turbulent times.

If your grocery store has an app or device that allows you to scan on the go, you’re now in a highly efficient grocery zone. Like TSA Pre-Check, except for the type of elite grocery shoppers who would never park their shopping cart in a high-traffic aisle. These programs, which prevent even the need to check in any way from sucking up time, combined with the groceries pre-sorted into these bags, reach the pinnacle of what in-person grocery shopping can aspire to.