It’s rare that I find something in the grocery store that makes my heart weep with unbridled, capitalistic desire. Yes, both WINE and nice cheese Departments sometimes have fun quests, but otherwise, there are plenty of ways to remix the food canon.

It’s not edible that just caught my eye, though, but a genius bit of infrastructure. And it’s brightly colored packaging, indeed, but not in the processed food department or the produce aisle. I saw them in a fellow shopper’s cart: four technicolor shopping bagsone of which is insulated, designed to fit inside a grocery cart, with hanging handles that stay open and in place while you shop.

Simple. Genius. How did I not realize it was missing from my life?

The rainbow colors are what really caught my attention here, but as my brain processed what I saw, it was my type-A heart that decided I needed them. (I enthusiastically stopped the owner to ask if I could take a picture, as if they were a quartet of puppies and not shopping bags.)

Certainly for a highly organized, competitive personality, efficiently sorting a grocery store’s purchases into their bags while lining up multiple aisles is about as much fun as one can have at the grocery store without being a Supermarket Sweep contestant. (The spice rack, fools! Go to the spice rack!)

Bags designed for real-time grocery cart organization

There are many reusable grocery shopping bags that can be securely placed inside your cart, but to maximize space and organization, look for those called “cart bags,” “cart caddies” or “trolley bags,” which also offer the added bonus of making grocery shopping sound like a fun outing more than a weekly chore.

There are many designs and layouts here to choose from: Some have clip-on cart handles that retract, some have separate, removable clips, and some are fitted with dowels that hang from the sides of the cart, stored in what looks like a tent roll. (Again, adventure, not tedium.) Not all sets have insulated bags, and some brands have bags that are the same color. (Probably so you don’t attract the attention of people like me who treat the grocery store like a fact-finding mission.)

You do it with a variety of options, but here are several sets available on Amazon, for around $30 to $40:

Sort while you shop

Maybe your kitchen pantry, like mine, wasn’t exactly designed with grocery aisle layouts in mind. Items that sit side by side on retail shelves often reside in opposite corners in real life. “Snacks,” for example, have been moved to different shelves in my kitchen based on reasons I don’t know enough to reveal here.

You might be squeamish about cleaning produce that shares bag space, or even cart space, with fresh produce. You probably have a lot to do when you go grocery shopping, and you’re wondering about the condition of your refrigerated or frozen items once you leave the store. These bags create order for all of this potential chaos, real or imagined.

The real beauty of these bags is that you can count your groceries in real time, according to any system that makes sense to 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 at the stage of grocery shopping.

I’m sure I don’t need to mention that it’s also environmentally positive, if you’re not into the reusable grocery bag game yet. A dedicated, ventilated bag for all your products can eliminate the need to wrestle with uncooperative product aisle bag rolls. Safe in their own color-coordinated zone, your lettuces and broccoli crowns won’t blend in with anything you don’t want them touching.

Use with scan-as-you-go apps for maximum efficiency

Checking and repacking your groceries will be more efficient when everything is organized in the same format. I realize it only takes minutes in your life, but for most of us, those minutes add up, not even over the course of a lifetime but over the course of a day, and a little extra clarity can go a long way in troubled times.

If your grocery store has an app or device that allows you to scan as you go, now you’re in a high-efficiency grocery zone. Like TSA Pre-check, except for the kind of elite grocery shoppers who never double-park their cart in high traffic lanes. Those programs, which prevent even the need to check out at any time absorbing meaning, including your pre-sorted groceries in these bags, are close to the pinnacle of what personal grocery shopping wants.