Food Inflation - Getting Nasty

[kengan]

About two and half hours from Khon Kaen. Roi-Et.

Oh right so its a couple of hours at least to the dog markets. I used to live south of SiSaket.

[rockhopper]

800g has been the standard size for a loaf of bread since I were a nipper.

had a look and it seems you are right that 800g is the std size, but there was a difference in size

as evidenced to me by the ability to fit a loaf in the microwave, and it also felt smaller .

iirc , the tesco home bakery was 1kg ... but of course icbw

simple answer is I'm now confused ... nowt new there then

[Austin Allegro]

they're not tricking me that easy

(this is genuine BTW, taken from sainsburys newbury park)

'How many tangy cheese Doritos am I holding up, Winston'

'One'

'And what is the cost of one, Winston?'

'99p'

'Good. And what is the cost of two?'

'£1.98'

'No Winston. The cost of two is £2.50.'

'But how can it be?'

'If Sainsbury's say two times 99p is £2.50, then two times 99p IS £2.50....'

[capcave]

Sainsburys in particular have a habit of doing something like putting a massive sign under, say, the Pringles saying "2 for £2" and under that in tiny letters will be something like "vomit and cheese flavour 13gram size only" which of course they don't even stock, and it's only when you get home and check your receipt that you find you've been duped.

eight

Yep...JS Has caught me out a few times with this wheeze. I F**king hate Supermarkets, esp their image of being there for us....

[SarahBell]

Yep...JS Has caught me out a few times with this wheeze. I F**king hate Supermarkets, esp their image of being there for us....

Morrisons have done it loads ... you'd assume by accident if it didn't happen quite so often.

They have also left their hula hoops in the same end of aisle box now the BOGOF is removed ... for the unwary the supermarket is an easy way to be fleeced.

[bomberbrown]

Agreed,

I find ASDA the least likely to try and rip you off. May not always be the cheapest, but usually is.

My largest hate is not price, but fake offers. Eg a huge display of sausages with '3 for £5' signs all over it. Only to find that about 50% of the things in that display are on offer. Then magically you pay 3 quid each at the checkout.

Tescos are the masters of this, people dont check their receipts and continually get ripped off. Not me though

Ahem.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12...E-products.html

[Bosco]

I noticed a wispa the other day in my local Centra corner shop at 66p and decided not to.

Reminds me of holidays in switzerland as a child in the 80's when sweets were just too expensive to buy with pocket money.

Not necessarily a bad thing for our nations dental health but stealthy all the same.

[Rare Bear]

Jeez

They'll get their first cut from the stupid/busy ones. (although your example must be a mistake, surely)

Then we all get it. By graduation.

I don't think he is mistaken. That is my usual supermarket and offers like that are not unusual. I've always thought that the people setting the prices assume that a fair proportion of the population can't do simple arithmetic.

[acer]

Fiddling with the sizes of products isn't a new thing. I remember my dad, a newsagent during the 70's, showing me how successive new deliveries of chocolate bars would consist of bars slightly smaller than the previous ones. This would go on until you'd get more expensive bars, back to the original size but emblazoned with phrases like "now even bigger".

Modern packaging makes these sort of tricks easier to pull off:

Mars-type bars' packaging stays the same size, but the bar inside can vary; when you actually feel the packaging, it might be 30% empty space;

Modern metallic type crisp bags are slightly pressurised - supposedly with inert gas to preserve the product. As they are non-transparent and of a constant size due to the pressure, it's very hard to tell how much is in each bag until you open them and find that they are only 1/3rd full. We have to console ourselves with the phrase "Contents may settle in transit";

Some biscuits come in a square section cardboard box, which feels full, but when you get them home, a lot of that space is taken up by the plastic tray that holds the product. Sometimes, the biscuits are held at 30 degrees or so to the axis of the box, so that even more space is wasted.

[Number79]

Best thing to do is buy in bulk from wholesalers. I know this is a bit more tricky in the UK than here becuase you need a Makro card or CostCo card, try and get one.

I buy all long life stuff in bulk now.

Washing powder, soap, shampoo, pasta, noodles, UHT milk, snacks for the kids, freezer stuff, conrnflakes, tea, pepper, salt, sauces . . . . everything but vegetables and fresh meat.

Spent a small amount on tupperware and the like to store the stuff but it cut the shopping bill by around 30%, perhaps a little more.

Not true, can't comment on other places but makro are at it aswell. Much of their stuff is more expensive than the supermarkets apart from the cheap catering crap that tastes auful. Large bottles or boxes or packets of branded stuff is often more expensive than supermarkets. Even when a bulk box looks cheap it is often more expensive when compared to the frequent supermarket offers. Oh, and don't forget to add the vat on at the end.

[Guest Daddy Bear]

remember when you could buy.......

24 x 330ml bottles of 5% lager e.g. Becks for £9.99

then......

18 x 330ml bottles of 5% lager e.g. Becks for £9.99

then.....

18 x 275ml bottles of 5% lager e.g. Becks for £9.99

The other day it was ....

18 x 275ml bottles of 5% lager e.g. Becks for £11.99

slowly slowly catchee monkey

Inflation - it will get you all in the end.

Get into assets asap

FFS, you dont have half a fertile imagination. Change the facts to make the story, surely not

Becks always been 275ml as far back as i can remember

Small linky, see date of review 2001!

http://www.bottledbeer.co.uk/index.html?beerid=1018

"e.g.Becks"

Sorry..... it was actually "Grolsch"

[Number79]

I don't think he is mistaken. That is my usual supermarket and offers like that are not unusual. I've always thought that the people setting the prices assume that a fair proportion of the population can't do simple arithmetic.

he isn't mistaken, sainsburys must assume that much of the population struggles with numbers. I have seen a number of their offers, 2 for 1, costing more than buying the items seperately. They also put stuff on offer at the end of the rows which looks like a good deal until you walk down the isle and find other stuff, often better brands, cheaper.

What does really insult me is the way that they cheat the price labelling system. Take bisto gravy, the smaller pot is labelled in pence per gram and the larger pot is pence per hundred grammes. You would assume that the larger pot of gravy would be cheaper as it is 'bulk' wouldn't you? Well, assume nothing because the larger pot is more expensive. Look around, this has become quite common in sainsbury and tesco now. Preying on the simple and the hurried.

[douggggy]

lidl`s dangerously cheap shower gel has just gone up from 12p to 19p

exact same one was 10p in sainsbury`s ..

[HPC001]

My suppliers of choice have been very transparent about their price rises. They've pretty much fully acknowledged they could not stay at early 2008 rates and still remain a viable business. I've switched manufacturers for the time being, but things will get harsh in the next year...

[Spot]

Aye, this all is nothing new.

When I first noticed supermarkets selling the smaller products cheaper I actually wet up to employees asking "are you sure this is right?" only to be met with blank, disinterested looks.

These days I try to use the local butcher and grocer as much as possible as I can walk there and a lot of the produce is cheaper than the supermarkets (for meat & veg). I also suspect the quality may be better from the local boys too.

When I came back to UK in 2002 I kept a spreadshite of expenses and as an example of inflation, Greggs sausage rolls were 24p each in 2002 and now they're 58p. My council tax was £700 and now it's £1600, etc, etc...

This year is the first year i've started growing my own. Learnt a lot, have had some tasty fresh food and looking forward to using the seeds from this years lot for next years growth.

I noticed Homebase were selling Butternut squash seeds £2 for a pack of 6. I reckon you must get about £40 worth of seeds out of a regular sized squash. Seeds, what a rip off.

[gravity always wins]

Aye, this all is nothing new.

When I first noticed supermarkets selling the smaller products cheaper I actually wet up to employees asking "are you sure this is right?" only to be met with blank, disinterested looks.

These days I try to use the local butcher and grocer as much as possible as I can walk there and a lot of the produce is cheaper than the supermarkets (for meat & veg). I also suspect the quality may be better from the local boys too.

When I came back to UK in 2002 I kept a spreadshite of expenses and as an example of inflation, Greggs sausage rolls were 24p each in 2002 and now they're 58p. My council tax was £700 and now it's £1600, etc, etc...

This year is the first year i've started growing my own. Learnt a lot, have had some tasty fresh food and looking forward to using the seeds from this years lot for next years growth.

I noticed Homebase were selling Butternut squash seeds £2 for a pack of 6. I reckon you must get about £40 worth of seeds out of a regular sized squash. Seeds, what a rip off.

Supermarkets are a rip-off and the quality is dire been telling people for years but they seem obsessed with them. A new one opened around my way and people actually go to have a look like its a day out!! - the amount of people I have heard discussing how nice it is. Crazy.

I have been growing my own for six years now can't beat it.

[BarnetBear]

FFS, you dont have half a fertile imagination. Change the facts to make the story, surely not

Becks always been 275ml as far back as i can remember

Small linky, see date of review 2001!

http://www.bottledbeer.co.uk/index.html?beerid=1018

I was puzzling over this yesterday, and am convinced you are correct on the size - Becks was 275ml in the mid-90s, in the UK at least. I was working in a supermarket at the time and even remember the price - fluctuating between £4.95 and £5.95 for 6 x 275ml, and a larger pack (12s I think) at £8.95-£9.95.

Looking at Tesco Pricecheck, the 6s are £5.99 now at Tesco and £5.88 at Sainsbury's, so not a signficant change.

Edited August 4, 2009 by BarnetBear

[Guest Daddy Bear]

I was puzzling over this yesterday, and am convinced you are correct on the size - Becks was 275ml in the mid-90s, in the UK at least. I was working in a supermarket at the time and even remember the price - fluctuating between £4.95 and £5.95 for 6 x 275ml, and a larger pack (12s I think) at £8.95-£9.95.

Looking at Tesco Pricecheck, the 6s are £5.99 now at Tesco and £5.88 at Sainsbury's, so not a signficant change.

No - you are wrong I used to buy 24 x 330ml for £9.99

This is proof of a 330ml bottle

and a crate of 24 x 330ml

Here is what a 275 ml looks like

Edited August 4, 2009 by Daddy Bear

[winkie]

Love the £1 shops and their micro portions...is the packaging getting smaller or is it my eyesight?

[madmax2]

Sorry to spoil the fun, but I think the shelf stacking monkey just put it on the wrong Doritos label - probably should have gone on the 225g pack which is 1.49.

that may well be, but i thought it such a good laugh that I nicked the label from under the see-through strip and kept it for posterity. the picture i posted is a scan of the actual lable. My 8yo son spotted it and packed up laughing in the aisle.

it is one, solid, printed label. as it came out of the computer/printer thingy from sainsburys. this was the offer. It is a c0ck-up, that is for sure, but I am also 100% convinced that a few people jumped for the 2for2.50 offer, and got charged 2.50 when it scanned through 2 packets. this is what an IT system does when it is told to do things like this.

Edited August 4, 2009 by madmax2

[Angelfish]

Supermarkets are a rip-off and the quality is dire been telling people for years but they seem obsessed with them. A new one opened around my way and people actually go to have a look like its a day out!! - the amount of people I have heard discussing how nice it is. Crazy.

I have been growing my own for six years now can't beat it.

If you want to look at the wheezes supermarkets pull with suppliers, customers, councils and even their own staff, spend a bit of time reading:

Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets by Joanna Blythman

I assume what she says is true as I haven't heard of her being sued

Bottom line is that they don't care about anything other than profit and ruthlessly cutting out any competition anywhere.

I was suprised to read that even the C@-@P are at it along with the big boys!

Also, they want to sell "food products" as there is more profit in that and it's easier to store and transport than that horrible "fresh food" stuff.

[bendy]

FFS, you dont have half a fertile imagination. Change the facts to make the story, surely not

Becks always been 275ml as far back as i can remember

Small linky, see date of review 2001!

http://www.bottledbeer.co.uk/index.html?beerid=1018

me too

but that's as far back as I can remember which is mid90's.

recently cases at supermarkets that go on a 2 for 16 sheets or 3 for 20 (used too) have gone from 18 to 15 cans.

deflation is here and here too stay for a long while.

i think the people will just take it though with no issues that'll get out of hand.

[BarnetBear]

No - you are wrong I used to buy 24 x 330ml for £9.99

I am not wrong. When and where were you buying these? Outside of a short term promotion, or non-UK stock, I simply cannot believe that price and quantity. The mainstream supermarket prices and sizes indicated in my original post are correct circa 1993-1995, I assure you.

I am not doubting that 330ml and other Becks Bier sizes exist, they certainly do - in other markets.

This is proof of a 330ml bottle

It's not proof of a 330ml bottle on the UK "carry home" market. In fact, the image is hosted at a com.au site - Australia. Different markets, different sizes - many soft drinks over in Australia are sized at 375ml rather than our 330ml.

and a crate of 24 x 330ml

Which looks remarkably like the case of 24 x 275ml here - would you not agree?

[Justice]

The Centre for Policy Studies argues that the real national debt is actually ?1,340,000,000,000 which is 103.5 per cent of GDP

British consumers are now more than ?1,400,000,000,000 in debt. That's around ?23,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in the UK.

Throw in PPP and public sector gold plated pension comitments and that £23k is about £50k

Sorry mate but your figures are well out of date and it was higher then that before QE and i want to know what you are doing to cover your part of the debt for my granny, unemployed brother and disabled sister because i'm not paying whilst we continue to be flooded with cheap immigrant labour forcing my wages down.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Justice

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

FFS, you dont have half a fertile imagination. Change the facts to make the story, surely not

Becks always been 275ml as far back as i can remember

Small linky, see date of review 2001!

http://www.bottledbeer.co.uk/index.html?beerid=1018

Precisely why I've never bought Becks. Kronenburg FTW.

Today I am mostly eating Weetabix. 96 Weetabix! Christ! How long are you going on holiday to outer Mongolia for?

Not exactly on topic but I know you are a proponent of the frozen packed lunch. What "works" in a frozen sandwich and what doesn't?