Food prices - can't keep up!

What’s causing it all? I agree it is getting ridiculous. When will it end? Yesterday we went out for coffee at a garden centre. A slice of cake was almost £5. We are taking our own snacks from now on.

Freya5

mabon1

Shop in Aldi and Lidl, their rices are cheaper than Asda and who ever shows in Waitrose these days? Wealthy people and snobs.

Oh dear, my daughter shops there, and is neither.
What an awful generalisation.

I'm such a snob (must be, because I'm not wealthy!).
But I shop in Lidl too. And Tesco!

Am I just confused?

Redhead56

I have a neighbour who works for a supermarket she told me there are lots of staff off sick constantly. The store won’t take on more staff and because of staff shortages certain counters are unstaffed and closed.
The staff who are working spend all their shift constantly moving stock around shelves in aisles etc. Each time stock is moved the product is priced up and its every day. The government put up retailers costs and we get to pay for it we consumers can’t win.

The fish counter, cheese counter and npbakery have closed at our nearest supermarket.

Items are constantly moved around and I was told it was to deter shoplifters but it makes it confusing for shoppers, especially if you are shopping in a hurry.

I am in favour of farmers getting a fair price so I know prices will go up now but supermarkets do make enormous profits.

mokryna

Harv1
Food prices would have been cheaper if the UK had kept in the EU.

No they would not. How do you explain €5.80 for 250 grams of butter in Germany, £1,99 in my local Tesco.??

mabon1

Shop in Aldi and Lidl, their rices are cheaper than Asda and who ever shows in Waitrose these days? Wealthy people and snobs.

Oh dear, my daughter shops there, and is neither.
What an awful generalisation.

David49

You have to remember food prices are much higher in other countries, including EU, Australia and NZ, a weak sterling does not help, weather events make it worse.

Yes food is much more expensive in European countries. My German family pay twice as much for a cucumber as do I. Seems strange when coming from a nearer destination, eg Nederlands.

Reported

Totally feel this! It seems like every time I go shopping, the prices have gone up again. It's getting harder to budget, especially for families trying to keep meals healthy and affordable. Honestly, even snacks at convenience stores are getting pricey. Lately, I’ve been turning to more cost-effective options at work, like finding a good vending machine service near me that actually stocks decent and reasonably priced snacks. It’s the little things that help stretch the budget!

Its a great offer, i agree

Should say that the soup was probably a small bowl. But even so.

I did take advantage, while I was in there, of it's £1 for soup roll and unlimited drinks offer.
Where else can you get a cup of coffee for £1, when out.

And some items are not just going up by a few pence. In the supermarket yesterday I noticed more than a fifty pence increase in some items which I buy regularly.

There seems to me, and going by a post with a link, that someone posted a couple of weeks ago, there is not that much difference in price between supermarkets now.

I went into as Asda last week. I go there from time to time, but not regularly.
It was half empty compared to usual.
It could have been an unusual reason for that.
But it was in a "poorer" town. And usually has lower prices, being Asda. But I came away thinking of several things I could get as cheap or cheaper, in other supermarkets.
I think Asda will suffer if it cant keep up with it usual lower prices.

I bought a wee box of Mr Kiplings French Fancies last week. I love them and they are a treat. They used to be £1 if you got them on offer, which they were quite often. Well, in Asda they were £2.85!!!!

Looks like prices are going up faster than pensions! 🫠 Even basic staples aren’t spared. Might have to start checking sites like subwaymenuprice.co.uk for better deals on meals!

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I love a bit of Waitrose. Kitty - you and I could do a Waitrose crawl- like a pub crawl but with a free coffee in every store.

Allira

petra

Kitty
You really should get out more 😂

A tour of Waitroses around the country! 😁

Yes, the one we go to is in the town.
But it is quite a distance away.

I see a business opportunity here. 😂

I have a choice of 2 Waitroses, both in towns about 5 miles distant, but, as I said, in the town centre so that all my shopping, in various shops gets done in one sweep,

petra

Kitty
You really should get out more 😂

A tour of Waitroses around the country! 😁

Yes, the one we go to is in the town.
But it is quite a distance away.

Kitty
You really should get out more 😂

Our Waitrose is, sadly, quite small and on the site of a former Budgens store in the next but one village.

I recently went to an in town one in Market Harborough (our nearest full sized one) and got really quite excited.

kittylester

Aldi and Lidl, at least here, have very little gf stuff since i have no option but to shop in the 'more expensive' supermarkets like Sainsbury's or Tesco.

Or give my wealthy, snobby side free reign and go to Waitrose.

I tranferred from using other supermarkets to shopping in Waitrose simply because their stores are not oversized and they are in town centres.

When I go to Waitrose I can leave the car in the car park while I go into the town centre to Superdrug, Holland & Barrett, the Building Society, Hairdresser, optician, and a host of other stores, and even visit the town museum to see their latest exhibition.

Any other supermarket is on the outskirts of town, is gigantic and takes hours to shop in and you are very lucky to find a parking spot anywhere near the shop entrance unless you cruise the car park for 5 minutes - then you have to drive to the town centre to do any other shopping you want to do.

There is a development of retirement homes opposite our Waitrose, the kind run by a charity, and you often see people from there shopping in Waitrose, an out of town supermarket is of no use to them, they do not have cars.

To say that Waitrose is for the wealthy and snobby is just repeating standard cliches. Town ccntre shops are bound to be more expensive, the rent and rates for such properties will be much higher than out of town sites. Convenience has to be paid for - and Waitrose do put most of their stores where they are convenient.

A newly opened Aldi has been a great addition to my town. I'm splitting my shopping now between that store and Sainsbury's, with a few things from Waitrose and Marks. So in a way, my shopping bill has slightly reduced, Aldi undercut some of Sainsbury's items, although I still use discounted Nectar prices on various products which can be good value. I'm lucky, Sainsbury's and Aldi only have a roundabout between them and Waitrose is literally next door to Aldi, so I can hotfoot it between the three if necessary. Aldi also has free parking for 90 minutes which is very good, with the other two a ten pound spend, not difficult, will give 2 hours free parking.

Witzend

MickyD

Locally grown in season fruit and veg are what our mothers or grandmothers bought - and they were canny shoppers.

They certainly were…I’m going to start taking more time in the supermarket and checking the origins. I’m sure we can live without strawberries for the winter.

TBH there wasn’t nearly so much choice when our grandmothers were doing the food shopping. I doubt they ever saw the likes of mangetout, sugar snaps, baby sweetcorn etc.

Potatoes, cabbage, sprouts, parsnips, swede, carrots, turnips and ‘tops’ would presumably have been mostly the order of the day - unless you lived near an ‘exotic’ market.

In the mid 50s my father who worked in central London bought me a few items - probably from Soho - for my school’s Harvest Festival display. Among them was a green pepper - what a weird thing! And it smelt so funny, too! 😂

We didn't have a fridge until I was about 9, let alone a freezer.

Mangetout? (Mange Tout, Rodney? 😁) What! You eat them like that and don't let them grow into proper peas?