So I was wondering if I was wasting a ton of money on Trader Joe's trail mix, a couple of people suggested I should make my own to save money. This seems obvious, why wouldn't a retailer charge a markup and if I was willing to buy ingredients in bulk and make it myself I should save some money, right?
Wrong.
Trader Joe's sells their Omega 3 Trek Mix for $5.49 for ten 1.5oz. baggies, that's $0.55 per baggie or $5.86 per lb. They sell the same mix in one big bag for $5.49 for 16 oz. It contains almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and dried cranberries.
I collected the costs for bulk nuts and cranberries from Costco, estimated the portions and added it all up. Result?
$0.52 per baggie or $5.59/lb.
My conclusion is it's not worth it to make your own unless you have access to cheaper bulk nuts than I do.
[UPDATE] I actually measured the contents of an individual baggie of trail mix and it broke down like this
25% pecans
25% cranberries
20% almonds
10% pistachios
10% walnuts
10% pumpkin seeds
I updated the calculations and making the same mix from bulk ingredients came to $.55/bag or EXACTLY the SAME as Trader Joe's.
If you use more of less expensive ingredients such as oats you can obviously lower the cost.
I also added the Trail Mix Calculator spreadsheet I used, you can use it yourself to figure out how much your trail mix really costs and play with ingredients and ratios.
Enjoy!