loss leader

Experts told the Pepperoni team it was a loss leader; only supermarkets could turn a profit by bringing in bananas from South America.

“Dairy is a ‘loss leader’ at the grocery store,” she said, and is often the major incentive for other items in the store.

In the early decades of the TV, it was acceptable for news to be a financial loss leader.

A loss leader and a billboard food for nearly every casino on the Strip, prime rib became the perfect dish for a town branding itself as the vacationland of middle-class luxury.

Instead, carrots are a "battleground for supermarkets", where they use them as a loss leader, he says.