The food I see most on sale now at the grocery store is canned tuna. I am not sure if Sunkist is trying to rally in new customers or the stuff on the shelves are about to go bad. Either way, they are constantly being marketed as a $1 off four cans or something of that nature.
Right now the two things that I see a ton of on sale are taco flavored Hamburger Helper and a new brand of instant coffee. I'm guessing that taco flavor Hamburger Helper is not a big seller in my geographic area and I never saw any marketing to launch the new brand of instant coffee so no one heard of it or bought it. These two items are piled up on a clearance rack in the front of the store.
We're up to our ears with fresh corn around here. They are selling large bags of it, already shucked, for like 99 cents. While I like corn, I don't know what happened to the crops of it this year around here, because it tastes awful, and I've barely been able to finish a cob of it. It's got a strange chemical smell and taste to it, and is neither sweet nor savory. Tuna in a can is always on sale, but I gave up buying it in cans years ago, after tasting the tuna in pouches. I know they cost more, but they are worth it. They could simply be selling it at a loss to lure you into making dishes that call for it, like Tuna Noodle Casserole. In other words, once you see the tuna is on sale, you may be inclined to pick up several cans of Cream Of Mushroom soup, some bags of Egg Noodles, Breadcrumbs, etc... Hamburger Helper, as well as many of the dried Lipton noodle and rice side dishes are almost always $1 each, I rarely see them selling for more than that. If anything, sometimes they are cheaper. I can't stomach any of them personally. Especially considering you can make all of those flavors at home just as easily with fresh ingredients you already have on hand. Why pay for a powdered "Alfredo Noodles" in a box, when I can make a fresh Alfredo sauce with the cream, Parmesan cheese and butter I already have in my fridge?
Right now my local stores are trying to unload all of the pumpkin flavored products from the holidays. I saw pumpkin cake mixes at Walmart for 25 cents each. There's also shelves of pumpkin frosting, pies, cookie mixes. I thought about picking up a few things, but I'm kind of burned out on pumpkin right now.
Here in Hawaii tuna has been on sale almost every week. Another is frozen foods. I like juices so I wish they'd go on sale especially the no sugar added ones. I need oatmeal and it usually goes on sale at the beginning of the month, but it doesn't go on sale at that time any longer. My home needs oatmeal just about that time so now the timing is off for getting oatmeal.
I've been getting a bunch of grocery flyers lately, since the Superbowl is coming up soon. Not surprisingly, a lot of stuff people would be getting for party snacks are on sale now. In addition, as others have noted on here before, this is also the time of year that chicken is on sale, since the grocery stores get stuck with a lot of other chicken parts, as they are trying to keep up with the demand for buffalo wings. Right now, Save-A-Lot has a 10lb pack of chicken legs (drum and thigh) on sale for only 29 cents a pound, or $2.90 for the whole pack. 10 pounds of chicken for under $3 is quite a steal. I plan on picking up a pack tomorrow and splitting it with my folks. Some other items marked down pretty cheap: Grapes are only 99 cents a pound at Aldi, Avocado's are only 40 cents each there as well, and a 5lb bag of red potatoes is only $1.49. They also have bags of salad mix as low as $99 cents each.
