Newsnight will ask its panel tonight: ” What kind of life can a chicken have had when it ends up sold at Tesco for £2?” The answer is obviously none.
It then continues to ask if anyone can afford to care when food prices are tripling and it costs nearly £75 to fill your car with petrol.
My answer to that is yes, we have to care and maintain public health standards. But at the end of the day, you will buy what you can afford. The days of cheap food have gone. Or have they? Tesco and Asda are waging a price war to entice shoppers, with Asda already selling ten staple items, including bread, eggs and butter, for only 50p from today.
I do not expect Asda is making a loss on these drastic price reductions, and if supermarkets can afford to do this now, how can they justify increasing these prices again and continuing to make vast profits at the expense of families struggling on the breadline? I appreciate that supermarkets have had to meet increased costs too, but now they must narrow their profit margin and tighten their belts just like the rest of us if they want to keep consumers on their side. I wonder if they predicted this a couple of years ago in their business plans.
Interestingly, Aldi, the German-owned discount chain, has experienced a 20 per cent rise in sales over the past four weeks – the fastest growth rate in Britain. The number of shoppers visiting its 400 stores has gone up by a quarter in the past three months. I can admit to being one of their new shoppers, though I still spent more than I wanted. Marks & Spencer, meanwhile, has suffered a 3.2 per cent fall in takings in its food halls in the past month.
So food is not just a political weapon, it’s also the cause of supermarket price wars, and this is a taste of what is to come. If you have any shopping tips on where and how to find best value, do share them please…
Last year, Hugh F-W demonstrated that you could use all of an organic chicken and make several meals that collectively proved as cheap as the factory-farmed, bung-it-in-the-oven approach. May I suggest that for many, it’s not the price of food that’s hurting, it’s the loss of culinary knowledge and skill?
Sackerson, I believe Hugh is going to be on Newsnight tonight.
Things are just too expensive.
I don’t think Asda is making any money on those things, they are called loss leaders and they hope you will spend lots more on other things in the store.
In North America we have been spoilt by cheap food for a long time but even here it’s going up and up.
Lidl have just opened here, and Aldi are building. I’m finding Lidl very beneficial. If you want what they sell you can save a lot of money. It all suggests that supermarkets charge too much.
Enjoy your trip to the Emerald Isle!
I wouldn’t mind if they gave farmers more.
Aldi was recommended to me and I have to say it’s good. Great stuff like XV olive oil at a fraction of the price you’d see elsewhere. Nice cakes, even the beer’s good.
As always a valuable post, Ellee. I belong to Costco–a discount membership club here in the USA. They are 50% lower with pharmaceuticals and many items are sold in bulk. But one still has to be choosy, yes!
Interesting stuff Ellee as always. Everythng seems to be back to front and inside out at themoment – and that’s not just me but the economy I mean!
When staple foods are at a discounts, it’s a very real price war.
I’d love to say I avoid shopping at supermarkets but I don’t because it’s just so hard to shop any other way unless you have oodles of time and loads of money.
I do buy some stuff (fruit juice cos they do bigger containers and I have a large family, chocolate, fruit and veg sometimes) from Lidl but generally I take the easy option and just buy things in one go at my nearest supermarket (which happens to be a branch of Morrisons).
It makes me cross that the discounted lines are often the grot that fuel bad eating habits. I can see why families on low incomes do buy convenience food like pizza because it really is very cheap and easy in comparison to more healthy options.
It does make you wonder about their profit margins if they can suddenly sell staples so cheaply. My weekly shop cost me 61 euros in the supermarket this morning.
Everything is going up in price! Here in Canada everyone is crying about gas prices, but I know it’s been higher in the UK and Europe for years. And food prices are getting ridiculous. I’m glad I only have to buy for one, except when company’s coming. It’s getting so you almost can’t have company anymore, too. Next thing party invitation will be BYOB and BYOF.
I agree with jmb, the staple cheap foods are loss leaders to get you to shop and buy the rest of your shopping there.
Maybe the offers found in smaller village type stores are worth shopping for now.Local produce such as fruit/veg and meat is not so expensive in comparison with the supermarkets.The gap is narrowing.Bring back the corner shop!
What point are you actually driving at though, Ellee?
Hi Elle,
the only thing to watch out for
is that as with every marketing ploy
Shoppers (who need to count the pennies) will flock to the supermarket which offers the best prices, discounts or bargains …
but what are you shopping for.
No good being led by the nose with the promise of bargain prices, if the goods you are actually filling your trolley with are not discounted or even more expensive.
It’s a bit like thinking you are buying an economical car (with a small engine( and yet it turns out that if you are driving at 70MPH on the Motorway, the BMW that is behind you or has just over taken you is getting better fuel consumption (miles per gallon) at that speed – as demonstrated on Top Gear.
Aaah the World of False Economies.
Budgens used to offer really cheap prices on tins of tomaroes, bread and milk.
Now you pay 80p for a tin of tomatoes, 80p for a loaf of ‘cheap’ bread and 80p for a litre of milk – all double what you paid for a year or two ago. And prices are going up not down.
James,
This supermarket price wars highlights how they are reacting to high food prices, they have to change the way they run their businesses. Shoppers are turning to chains like Aldi to save money. The big chains have to cut their profits and be less greedy. We live in very different times now.
How much is Asda charging for petrol?
Lidl and Aldi are very good value selling less range but as good quality.
The big supermarkets have had a shock and this “we’re doing it to help the customers” is baloney. Be careful of loss leaders.
Buy bulk with tinned foods when you find them cheap – ditto non-perishables on bogofs
Team up with friends to buy bulk bogofs on perishables such as veggies and divvy them up between you in the car park afterwards. You can halve the cost of a shop doing these tricks.
Get membership of Costco type outlets too.
I wonder if it’s worth starting up a small business to avoid vat – someone better qualified than me might be able to comment here.
Same pattern here in Australia. Two companies, Coles and Woolworths control 80 percent of the grocery market. They also have significant complementary stakes in alcohol and petrol, with linked promotions. A recent one was a $15 petrol voucher with six bottles of wine.
You just have to grin and bear it and shop carefully.
I first started shopping at Aldi many years ago. I found it was the only place I could get some of the German foods I enjoy. Now Morrisons has some of this food, however, they are more expensive and the quality is not always as good.
Another tip …
shop late in the day when they start off loading ‘sell by’ produce at discount.
Happy Birthday by the way. Hope you got some fab presents from the luxury list!
David, my friend Geoff gave me my best birthday present – sorting out my computer problems and giving me peace of mind. I’m very easily pleased. And many thanks for the birthday wishes.
Ha ha we wll need a Geoff!
I have been writing about the delights of Aldi for about a year – since I got really poor actually. The answer to shopping is – make alist – and only buy what you went for. Supermarkets hate that!
Mutley, I can never stick to a list, that is where internet shopping has an advantage.
David, yes, Geoff is a gem, I would be lost without him…
Hi Ellee – belated Happy Birthday!
I left a comment on this topic last week but evidently did not press the right button! LOL.
However, I wished to tell you we now do as much of our shopping at Lidls as possible as we have a branch nearby plus the rest in either Sainsburys or Asda.
We plan every main meal and write our lists accordingly; we cook too much for two and either freeze extra or use roast meats for salads on the second day. In other words, good old-fashioned housekeeping like my mother has always practised. Have we taught our younger folk the same? I wonder.
i’m not sure if you’re having a technical issue with the website but the page does not seem to be accepting comments with “embedded” tags. (the “a href” instruction)
i’m fairly confident the html was correct, so you might wish to investigate the issue.
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