Supermarket prices on staples creeping up

[Karen_D]

Not only are the prices creeping up on staples, some of them will soon disappear. We use T***o only if we have some clubcard vouchers - soon to be a thing of the past as we've changed our credit card - so we tend to notice the changes as we only go once every few months. The deli counter that once was half an aisle is now around a third of that - replaced by bagged ready meals. Each time they move around the vegetable displays another chunk of it becomes prepared vegetables.

Other supermarkets are just as bad, you can buy 20 types of curry sauce in tins, 40 in jars, numerours packets but they don't sell cumin - or sell it in such tiny packets at an exhorbitant price it would be cheaper to buy the packet mix to make a curry or chilli. Thankfully we live near enough to good Asian groceries and can buy large packets of good quality spices cheaply. They are also reasonable for a lot of veg and things liked tinned tomatoes.

Wassail

Karen

[Stonehead]

Not only are the prices creeping up on staples, some of them will soon disappear.

Value chopped canned tomatoes have already been axed from our T***o. We get whole instead, but I've been told there's not enough demand so they're going next. Strangely, they're often on the verge of being sold out...

[shiney]

Karen_D, I use our Asian mini market too. They have huge bunches of corriander for the same price as three leaves and a plastic box in the bigger stores.

Also things like lentils, chickpeas and rice are sooooo cheap, as well as spices. You can buy 25Kg of rice in our local store!

[Martin]

I know where the T***o's chopped tomatoes went! There's a stall at our local market who flogs "job lots" of "name brand" foods - I got 20 tins of T***o chopped tomatoes for £2

[Millymollymandy]

Not only are the prices creeping up on staples, some of them will soon disappear.

Value chopped canned tomatoes have already been axed from our T***o. We get whole instead, but I've been told there's not enough demand so they're going next. Strangely, they're often on the verge of being sold out...

What will people do without tinned tomatoes? It's such a necessity in life like flour and sugar!

[Stonehead]

Not only are the prices creeping up on staples, some of them will soon disappear.

Value chopped canned tomatoes have already been axed from our T***o. We get whole instead, but I've been told there's not enough demand so they're going next. Strangely, they're often on the verge of being sold out...

What will people do without tinned tomatoes? It's such a necessity in life like flour and sugar!

I think we're supposed to buy the ones that cost more than twice as much. No chance.

[cat]

I've noticed a big rise in prices here too.
I think our "staples" generally cost a lot more here generally : a 1 litre carton of fresh milk is about £1.00 - we get through two of them a day!
My children only really drink water, milk and cartoned fruit juice. No fizzy drinks etc.
Here in Italy there are lots of "fruit juices" in cartons (Peach, pear, apricot) where there is a fruit content of 40% the rest is mainly water and sugar. I'm a price totter like stoney and also a compulsive ingredient watcher, but no one else here looks at the contents, E additives and all the rest. Friends were really shocked when i suggested that the "Healthy" fruit juices they were giving their children were actually mostly sugar, water and additives!

[2steps]

I often see juices like that here too. Think people buy them as they seem like a good deal for juice, doesn't occur to them to check the ingredients as they think it's fresh juice. Though I'd prefer a juice with sugar added than a load of rubbishy sweeteners. My children both really like those flavored waters you get but they always have sweeteners in and sometimes sugar too (why?)
Hav etried making my own but they never taste right. They have had some herbal teas they liked if they were sweetened a little

[Shirley]

We got some fruit juice concentrate from Suma that is very nice and I made some elderberry cordial the other day - I like it, but the kids don't... I think it's the cloves in it that they object to, but they'll just have to learn to like it or drink milk or water instead. I did make a lot of it after all... and the fruit was free from the elder trees. YAY

[glenniedragon]

Elderberry cordial is delcious as a vodka mixer. I've found some 'healthy' waters also have caffeine in! Not good in a house with caffeine sensitivities all round.
Kind thoughts
Deb

[2steps]

Shirlz, my son loves elderflower champange (is non alcoholic ) I only made a few bottles to try it and he loves it and wants loads next year. I was making some elderflower cordial but it went mouldy

[Shirley]

2steps - yes, he loves the elderflower champagne... and now that we know where there is an abundant supply of elder we'll go along in the spring and pick some flowers... sensitively of course... we want to have some elderberries in the autumn time !!

Shame about your cordial...

[Shirley]

Elderberry cordial is delcious as a vodka mixer. I've found some 'healthy' waters also have caffeine in! Not good in a house with caffeine sensitivities all round.
Kind thoughts
Deb

I've not tried it yet, but I had heard it went well with vodka... and today we picked up a bottle of Scottish vodka so will give it a try with that

[hedgewizard]

Stoney, don't forget that in England, in the Middle Ages a 'hide' was a piece of land just big enough to support one free family. It would have been 80 to 120 acres in size depending on the quality of the land. OK so we have tech now, but that's what they reckoned you needed to be truly and sustainably self-sufficient.

And yes, I'm seeing "real" ingredients increasing in price and disappearing from the supermarkets. It doesn't seem so long ago that I was patting myself on the back for saving a fortune on my shopping by actually cooking; now, increasingly, I'm having to remind myself why I do it. I'm supposed to buy the 2-for-1 processed crap like a good sheepie, am I? Huh!

As an aside, my OH and I have just finished a brief debate (brief because I said "oh, right then" instead of provoking the full lecture) on the nestle ban. I was wondering if it was ethical to break the ban when it came to 2-for-1s because it actually costs them money to do it (allegedly), but OH pointed out that when they look at sales targets and what to sell, they only look at total units shipped. In other words sales, ANY sales, only encourage them.

I'm currently wondering how I still manage to spend so much at the supermarkets. I think I'm going to have to audit my spending and consider some changes in what I buy. The total is always a horrible shock to me. I don't add up - it's as much as I can do to turn the right way at the end of each aisle!

[Stonehead]

Stoney, don't forget that in England, in the Middle Ages a 'hide' was a piece of land just big enough to support one free family. It would have been 80 to 120 acres in size depending on the quality of the land. OK so we have tech now, but that's what they reckoned you needed to be truly and sustainably self-sufficient.

Our croft used to support four families on its seven acres. There were the owners in the main house, near relatives in the cottage and distant relatives in the two bothies (now hayshed and byre). They grew all their own food, had a cow, a horse, poultry and a few sheep.

The men would work on the surrounding farms part of the time and on the croft the rest of the time.

I've met an old chap was born here just prior to WW1 and he tells me that for cutting the barley on the croft you needed three men with scythes, all the children gleaning, all the women binding the stooks, and one man with the horse and cart, loading the stooks. They'd work as a team around the farms as well, but that had already gone by the time WW1 had ended (combination of war and mechanisation - reaper/binders etc).

No wonder I can't keep up with the workload!

As an aside, my OH and I have just finished a brief debate (brief because I said "oh, right then" instead of provoking the full lecture) on the nestle ban. I was wondering if it was ethical to break the ban when it came to 2-for-1s because it actually costs them money to do it (allegedly), but OH pointed out that when they look at sales targets and what to sell, they only look at total units shipped. In other words sales, ANY sales, only encourage them.

Also, the cost of bogoffs is born by the original producers, not by the middlemen, the processors or the supermarket. It's why farmers hate bogoffs - for every piece of produce they sell to the supermarkets, they have to provide another one free.

It's the same with things like bananas. The boys eat a lot of bananas and the Free Trade ones are a big expense for us, but there's no way I'd buy the Value bananas or the Chiquita-sourced ones. The supermarket chains pay so little for them that they can only be sourced from countries with appalling employment conditions and exceptionally low wages. The countries with minimum legal wages and some employment protection (although still a lot less than in the UK) cannot compete.

As for Chiquita, well, let's just say that it's a company with very dubious practices, megabucks in its warchest and battalions of lawyers. So, do your own research but think carefully before you post too much about what you find because they do go after people, organisations and companies that criticise them. I'm very serious about this, so think carefully before you post about the company.