WTOP reports that Wegmans food markets, that family-owned chain of grocery stores to end all grocery stores, will be freezing prices on 40 “staple products” that are most frequently purchased by families:

The products include orange juice, coffee, cereal, bananas, red peppers, pasta and sauce. Also on the list are chicken, ground beef, salmon, tilapia, tuna, frozen pizza, frozen vegetables and deli ham and turkey.

Nearly all of the products are the Wegmans brand.

“We can be more aggressive with pricing for our own brand because we have better access to information on the factors that determine costs,” said Wegmans spokeswoman Jo Natale, in a news release.

“These products are already the best value in their respective category, and for that reason, they are also usually the top-selling brand in a category,” Natale says.

The products on this list will have their prices frozen for the duration of 2011, surely a boon for those whose dollar is stretched on groceries as it is.

Unfortunately, what District customers might save on staples will go right back into the cost of actually getting to a Wegmans store. The closest Wegman’s location to Washington City Paper‘s offices in Adams Morgan is just over 13 miles away in Maryland, in Lanham. The second closest is in Fairfax County, and that’s a 20-mile jaunt into the Virginia suburbs.

So, you’d better get a car before you get those low-cost frozen green beans.

Photo by Flickr user Seuss using an Attribution 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license