StainlessSteelCat Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 God knows what is happening to Innocent smoothies. Can fluctuate between £2 and £3.79 each. A month or so back they completely disappeared. Then they came back but something seemed different when I lifted it off the shelf. A close examination of the pack found 750ml written in small indistinct print. They had reduced by a quarter in size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John The Pessimist Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 In defence of food manufacturers (and I am one), the margins are wafer thin. Mainly because the retailers have forced us to absorb all the input inflation (raw materials, packaging etc) over many years. When the retailers eventually relent and agrees to pass on price increases, it comes with a caveat that the price can't go beyond a certain tipping point. This is when pack size comes into play, which the retailers are happy to sell as a corporate social responsibility ploy "in the fight aginst obesity/climate change/wet tuesdays etc. As a manufacturer, I have 6 channels to 93% of my market. At any point they can turn to me and ask for £500K "overrider" or "margin support" just because they are having a bad year. And I have no choices in the matter, otherwise I'll be delisted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winkie Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 (edited) They keep opening more and more stores....do they think they will have more and more customers buying more food...no they won't, the same money or less will have to be spread around all food outlets and other supermarkets, if they didn't take on more debt by expanding continually maybe they wouldn't require such mark ups and wouldn't throw so much perfectly good produce away into land fill.....I buy my perfectly good fruit and veg, the supermarket rejects, wrong size, too dirty, knobbly or A1....it cooks just as well and tastes just as good, the price is a third of supermarket perfect plastic wrapped offerings. Edited September 8, 2011 by winkie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hedgefunded Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 I'm incredibly price/volume conscious and have changed my spending accordingly. I used to buy quite a few items that I regarded as treats/non-essentials but nowadays I buy none. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superted187 Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 The other thing you have to be careful of is bulk sizes are often not the cheapest price per unit. Yes, on the price label, supermarkets always print a "price per kilo/litre/gram/100sheets" etc in small lettering. I use this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terribad Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 My treat is chocolate raisins. The price gap between these and other chocolate stuff is widening. about 60p for a hefty bag of them, compared to about £1.50 for say a bag of minstels. Technically 1 of your 5-a-day too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winkie Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 Yes, on the price label, supermarkets always print a "price per kilo/litre/gram/100sheets" etc in small lettering. I use this. Not only do you compare at the time with similar products on the shelf taking into consideration quality, compare with the other competition in the area....then compare the price to what it was last time you bought it....so the best way to save is buy different things from different stores, but also swap and change brands as and when it works to your advantage......sometimes you can find a product you would never have normally tried but would continue to buy even if the price increased slightly...because it is worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccc Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 (edited) Stewarts Brewing from Edinburgh have some nice beers. And I am not that into 'real' beers but their Edinburgh Gold and Holyrood are very tasty. Holyrood is a bit more hoppy but nice - bit more to get used to if you are used to cooking lager like myself. However the Edinburgh Gold is nice from the word go - even if you are used to Carling or Tennents or whatever. Flat postage rate of £10 for any amount anywhere in the UK. Which is pretty good if you order a decent amount. Even with the postage each bottle comes in at about £1.50. Which seems decent for an award winning beer. Recommended. www.stewartbrewing.co.uk Edited September 8, 2011 by ccc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Self Employed Youth Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Rubbish - I guarantee that drinkers contribute more in (alcohol) taxes than it costs to treat them in the NHS. (same as smokers). everyone should go on strike and not drink for a year - it would bring the country to its knees. Brew your own, deprive them of revenue for eternity. Pay the local jobless to work on your home in beer! I labour for 2 beers an hour, even though I brew my own. That's below minimum wage if you look at it in monetary terms. A gesture currency for a thirsty man! Come to think of it, yesterday I removed and installed a cooker, for 2 cups of tea. I'm beginning to question whether I'm unemployed now. Need I declare them two cups of tea to the DWP? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Self Employed Youth Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Two related points to the OP (bad form to reply to yourself I know!). I remember not long ago that you used to get a crate of Strongbow for about £15 for 24 cans which equates to £0.625/can, even this was way above the £0.50/can that I used to aim for. Then the boxes went down to 18, 16, 14, 12, with ever changing prices so the supermarkets can compete on price, but the consumer could just get more and more confused! On the subject of confusion is there any supermarket that has any more 'offers' than Sainsburys? They have every permutation of '3 for 2', 2 for 1', 6 for 5', '1 for 4', etc. It's like some sort of mental challenge shopping in there! 1 Pint = 1 Pint = 568ml. A crate of beer used to be IS 24 pints, equivalent to 3 gallons of beer. First I thought they were trying to bring in metrication, and have us move to drinking beer by the Litre/half Litre, what with the 500ml cans. Then the 440ml's appeared, we now have 330ml cans, sold as a pack of 6 and cheekily referred to as a crate. Bottle's of decreasing size also. 330, 300, 275 250ml. I received an email from Carling about their new beer (4.8%), after having complained about them reducing the abv (Carlin Premier anyone) and size of cans. I replied to the email. Think I called them penny pinching bastards and lamented the waste of steel in their ever smaller cans. I suggested they bring manufacture beer only in PINTS. For alcohol it's best to measure the price per unit of similar drinks (often the same brand of the same beer being sold in up to 10 different combinations at a time in the same store). DUTY come's into play also. Hence a bottle of cider with an abv of 7.51% costs a hell of a lot more than one with an abv of 7.49%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJJ Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 (edited) I'm currently in Italy. Last week I bought a box of 15 of these: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268741566 for 8 Euros and 40 cents. Not a special offer. Just the price it usually is. I won't be buying alcohol upon my return to the UK Edited September 9, 2011 by JJJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butthead Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 God knows what is happening to Innocent smoothies. Can fluctuate between £2 and £3.79 each. A month or so back they completely disappeared. Then they came back but something seemed different when I lifted it off the shelf. A close examination of the pack found 750ml written in small indistinct print. They had reduced by a quarter in size. Immediately prior to that I noticed that they weren't filling the containers up properly. I assumed it was because they were on offer (£4 for 2) but perhaps it was phasing in a size drop sneakily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest eight Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 Brew your own, deprive them of revenue for eternity. Pay the local jobless to work on your home in beer! I labour for 2 beers an hour, even though I brew my own. That's below minimum wage if you look at it in monetary terms. A gesture currency for a thirsty man! Come to think of it, yesterday I removed and installed a cooker, for 2 cups of tea. I'm beginning to question whether I'm unemployed now. Need I declare them two cups of tea to the DWP? I hope you've got all the necessary certification for doing that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Self Employed Youth Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 I hope you've got all the necessary certification for doing that. You need certificates? It's less complicated than making a cup of tea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horridbloke Posted September 10, 2011 Share Posted September 10, 2011 God knows what is happening to Innocent smoothies. Can fluctuate between £2 and £3.79 each. A month or so back they completely disappeared. Then they came back but something seemed different when I lifted it off the shelf. A close examination of the pack found 750ml written in small indistinct print. They had reduced by a quarter in size. Thanks for confirming this, I had a "hold on, this smoothy used to be bigger didn't it?" moment a couple of days ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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