Cost of M & S Christmas food

Allira

escaped

And a Charlie Bigham alternative for two. £29.95
I quite like his meals.

Charlie is here this evening cooking for us 😁

High saturated fat and salt in his ready meals. Tasty but not very healthy.

Not everything we eat has to be healthy. Life can be a balance of good for you, bad for you, home made, convenient or even takeaways.

I'm not very keen on all this "party food" stuff. It all looks very tempting and exotic but I've usually found it pretty disappointing and not living up to the hype. It invariably tastes "shop bought". I'm not taking any moral high ground at all, but personally I'd rather just have my own home cooked gammon with crusty bread (and maybe mash or chips) and pickles for Boxing Day. Turkey sandwiches with a good cheese board does the trick on Christmas Day evening.

If you think M & S food is expensive don’t go into central London, restaurant prices both food and drink including nonalcoholic would make your eyes water.

I still don't know how many will be here on Christmas Day, but for anyone interested, if you have a Sainsbury's delivery pass the slots are available to book today. For those without a pass I think it is 23rd November. You have to check out, but can amend your order until the day before it is due.

I'm not very keen on all this "party food" stuff. It all looks very tempting and exotic but I've usually found it pretty disappointing and not living up to the hype

Me too.
The "nice bits" of it are too small compared to all the pastry or whatever.

Doodledog

I still don't know how many will be here on Christmas Day, but for anyone interested, if you have a Sainsbury's delivery pass the slots are available to book today. For those without a pass I think it is 23rd November. You have to check out, but can amend your order until the day before it is due.

I booked my Waitrose slot mid September, threw on laundry & cleaning products, fizz, wine and beer 🙀

I must to remember to go back and do a proper order otherwise Christmas food will be interesting.

GrannyGravy13

Doodledog

I still don't know how many will be here on Christmas Day, but for anyone interested, if you have a Sainsbury's delivery pass the slots are available to book today. For those without a pass I think it is 23rd November. You have to check out, but can amend your order until the day before it is due.

I booked my Waitrose slot mid September, threw on laundry & cleaning products, fizz, wine and beer 🙀

I must to remember to go back and do a proper order otherwise Christmas food will be interesting.

Wow, I thought today was early! I've put in a decent bottle of champagne, so if I do end up going out (unlikely) and forget to change the order we can at least toast my ineptitude .

A friend of mine once got an email asking if she really only wanted cornflakes and gin on her Christmas order - she'd booked early, been invited out and forgot to change it.

Beans on toast with champagne sounds an interesting alternative to turkey!

I haven't even thought about it and didn't realise slots were open (and probably all gone).

I have a regular Sainsbury's delivery so i'm in that zone but my next door neighbour forgot she had ordered a 'good' bottle of brandy just to reserve the slot. She had a bit of a shock when it turned up.

We get our Christmas meat every year from Donald Russell, online delivery. The meat is great quality and we’ve bought a large turkey crown, a large gammon, a leg of lamb and a lovely beef joint. It was approx £250 including delivery.

We get a few small things from M&S, but nothing excessive and the rest comes from local greengrocers or Tescos.

Day to day we often get our meat from a local butchers, but have found Aldi does very good steaks and great fresh produce.

Shop around and choose carefully, there are 6 adults for Christmas and Boxing Day and we do splash out at Christmas.

As for pressies, I save monthly with Park, and use their Purple card and Amazon card (pre paid from my monthly savings) for online shopping, for both presents and “extras” like Christmas crackers.

There is a very wide range of shops including Boots, who have great Christmas offers.

I remember reading, about the cons of having a late delivery of the Christmas turkey, obviously wise to take it out of its packaging before the day, as some complained theirs had gone off. Also read, hard to belive, one supermarket retailer, having run out of turkeys, delivered, as a substitute turkey twizzlers hard to believe when it seems there are still plenty in the shops come Christmas Eve.

I booked my Waitrose slot mid September, threw on laundry & cleaning products, fizz, wine and beer.
Are you expecting to make a lot of mess and stains GrannyGravy13? 😹 🍷

The thing is, M&S Food is always busy, and they are expanding their food business every year. There’s no doubt enough people will pay the prices they charge and keep them in profit. I do buy some items in M&S for Christmas every year, particularly from their gluten free Christmas range, which is the best - in fact, their gluten free range generally is better than elsewhere, the only other supermarket with a good selection is Sainsburys.

We have bought our Christmas necessities and treats from M&S for years. Will be looking elsewhere this year. Had booked my collection slot as always but once i started browsing and seeing the prices I changed my mind. Tesco Finest here I come 😜

Aldi do a good range of Christmas food and sweets, have a look.

TerriBull

I remember reading, about the cons of having a late delivery of the Christmas turkey, obviously wise to take it out of its packaging before the day, as some complained theirs had gone off. Also read, hard to belive, one supermarket retailer, having run out of turkeys, delivered, as a substitute turkey twizzlers hard to believe when it seems there are still plenty in the shops come Christmas Eve.

The thing to remember is that the order picking and substituting of goods when the item of food is out of stock is done by the ordinary supermarket shop workers doing the order fulfillment, who are many and varied in their backgrounds, and some who are just allpurpose clueless.

DS worked for Tesco when studying for a post graduate qualification and he said, undergrads got the favoured jobs on the tills, master degree students (like him, were relegated to loading the shelve while those who were studying for PhDs got the cleaning amd warehousing jobs. Perhaps Tesco know something.

The thing to remember is that the order picking and substituting of goods when the item of food is out of stock is done by the ordinary supermarket shop workers doing the order fulfillment, who are many and varied in their backgrounds, and some who are just allpurpose clueless.

I imagine most supermarkets work the same way, the hand held device the picker is holding actually tells them what to select as a substitute. I'm sure we've all searched websites using a couple of words and got back results all of which will contain one of those words eg lemon cleanser, lemon juice, lemon cake etc (not the best example but I couldn't think of any other) but which won't be acceptable substitutes. If the worker doesn't know what's being substituted how would they know it's not suitable?

escaped

^I booked my Waitrose slot mid September, threw on laundry & cleaning products, fizz, wine and beer.^
Are you expecting to make a lot of mess and stains GrannyGravy13? 😹 🍷

Well I did the same!
And yes, I am quite messy!

M0nica

TerriBull

I remember reading, about the cons of having a late delivery of the Christmas turkey, obviously wise to take it out of its packaging before the day, as some complained theirs had gone off. Also read, hard to belive, one supermarket retailer, having run out of turkeys, delivered, as a substitute turkey twizzlers hard to believe when it seems there are still plenty in the shops come Christmas Eve.

The thing to remember is that the order picking and substituting of goods when the item of food is out of stock is done by the ordinary supermarket shop workers doing the order fulfillment, who are many and varied in their backgrounds, and some who are just allpurpose clueless.

DS worked for Tesco when studying for a post graduate qualification and he said, undergrads got the favoured jobs on the tills, master degree students (like him, were relegated to loading the shelve while those who were studying for PhDs got the cleaning amd warehousing jobs. Perhaps Tesco know something.

😁

I loaded the shelves in Sainsburys for a while.
Perhaps the manager knew we'd be the ones bother to rotate the items by date.
The sixth formers were put on the alcohol aisle 😲

Rosie51 - maybe try Ocado? I think their search facility is the best.

NotSpaghetti

Rosie51 - maybe try Ocado? I think their search facility is the best.

I've used them and agree it's often better, though definitely not perfect.
My point was that the poor picker is 'told' on the hand held device what products to select, they do not select substitutions by their own choice, and don't even know what the original item was. Criticising the picker is definitely 'punching down'.

Yes.
I took your wider point, Rosie.
Was really just commenting on the website searching/filtering.
It was actually more of an "aside" - sorry.
(It's a particular bugbear of mine,I'm afraid. Why can't these behemoths put a few more pence into their search facilities!)

Casdon

The thing is, M&S Food is always busy, and they are expanding their food business every year. There’s no doubt enough people will pay the prices they charge and keep them in profit. I do buy some items in M&S for Christmas every year, particularly from their gluten free Christmas range, which is the best - in fact, their gluten free range generally is better than elsewhere, the only other supermarket with a good selection is Sainsburys.

Yes I also buy their gluten free range and buy pressies from their chocolate and biscuit selection for others, but wouldn’t do a Xmas grocery shop there. I buy mostly at Lidl and Aldi and both stores have some really good items for Xmas, always have.