The True Cost of Cheap Food?

geordie_joe

MrsE wrote: »

I guess it depends a lot on where you live in the country.

I've read many posts on here where people (not in the south east) can go to local farms & get cheap fruit & veg & free range eggs etc.

In Surrey those farm places cost more than Waitrose:rolleyes:

I often think to myself if they dropped the prices a little they would sell a hell of a lot more;)

I've had this conversation many times before, usually in the green and ethical board where it starts a fight.

But as you are all nice people who don't fight I will try again.

When I was a lad you could buy stuff from the local farm for the same price the farmer sold it to the shops. e.g. a farmer would sell a bag of veg to the shop for a quid, the shop would sell it to you for two quid. But you could go to the farm and buy the same bag of veg for a quid if you wanted. The farmer sold you stuff at the same price as he sold to the shops.

These days, in the south at least the farmers charge you a lot more.

Last year I was off work and discovered we have a farmers market on the last Friday of the month. I'd lived in this town nine years at the time, and obviously never been in town on the last Friday of the month!

I wandered around and found a stall selling local farm produced meat, I noticed a joint of beef at £12 per kilo, locally produced and organic. I thought "I've got as joint exactly the same in my slow cooker, form the local butcher and it only cost £7 per kilo"

I live in an alley (the developers called it a court yard, but believe me, it's an alley), across the road from the market. There's only a road, a pavement and the length of 6 flats between where I live and the market. So I went home and fished the packaging for the meat out of the carrier bag I use for a bin. The meat did cost me £7, but it was actually £5.98 per kilo. It was the same meat from the same farm as the market stall was selling.

I went back to the stall to double check. It was the same meat from the same farm! I then went to the butchers, and it was 11 steps from the market stall to the butchers door, and just inside was the big fridge and in it was the same meat, from the same farm at £5.98 per kilo.

I went back to the stall and asked the man where the meat came from, he said "It's fresh from our farm, we cut out the middle man so you can't buy meat this good cheaper anywhere"

I just walked away and vowed never to go back.

I mention this to a friend who has lived here all his life, and he pointed out that the woman who sells fruit and veg at the Saturday market sells "locally farm grown carrots" for 60p for 2LB but at the farmers market she sells "locally farm grown carrots" at £3 per LB. I don't know if this is true as I haven't been back to check.

I'm sure other people can buy cheap stuff from farmers, but down in Dorset my experience is they hike up the prices because people will pay more for it.

Personally I wouldn't cross the road to buy, or look at a farmers market.

Please don't bother to tell me about poor farmers who plough produce back into the ground because supermarkets won't pay then enough for it. Or that they have to plough back odd shaped tatties because the supermarkets won't buy them.

I just won't buy it.

a) If they can afford to sell meat to a butcher and that butcher can sell the meat to me for £5.98 per kilo, there is no excuse for them trying to sell the same meat to me at £12 per kilo.

b) Supermarkets do buy odd shapes produce, they may bag it and call it "Value", but they do buy it and sell it to us.

c) I simply will not buy an odd shaped spud from a stall at an over inflated price when I can buy odd shaped spud in the super market for next to nothing.

My experience is, down here they don't charge you what the stuff is worth, they charge what they think you are willing to pay. And down here people think that the more they have paid for something the better it must be.

ben500

geordie_joe wrote: »

Before xmas I was in Morrisons and bought two loose pomegranates.

At the checkout the young girl picked one up, looked at it as if it came from Mars. Looked around, I suspect for a colleague she could ask, looked back at the pomegranate, then looked at me and said "What's this?"

I said "A pomegranate"

She said "Oh, right" then looked them up on the list and rang them into the till. She then turned to me and said

"Sorry about that, I didn't recognise them as I don't eat vegetables"

You should have told her it was a carrot and saved a few bob, then back to the shelf for the rest.

thriftlady_2

geordie_joe wrote: »

I'm sure other people can buy cheap stuff from farmers, but down in Dorset my experience is they hike up the prices because people will pay more for it.

.

I wonder if the price hike in Dorset is due to The River Cottage effect down there Joe? I applaud Hugh FW for his food campaigning and I love his books but I gather from the River Cottage forums that he charges a fortune for his porduce.


I too avoid my local farmer's market mainly because it is on a Sunday and I don't like shopping on Sundays (not for religious reasons) but also because it is flaming expensive. I prefer a farmshop where I can get 4 pints of milk for £1.25 and 20 kg of spuds for £4. Local is my watchword;)

thriftmonster

Can I just make the point without getting shot down completely that OS is not all about having the cheapest food budget, like some sort of competition - it should be about getting the best value, not being wasteful etc.

I think Penelope Penguin quoted Nigella once as saying she may be extravagent but is never wasteful. That's me as well. I never post about my food budget because I just know that I would get the "OMG I could feed our family for 3 years on that" etc

I think the families on this programme did cook nicely and I agree it was lovely to see the kids tucking in. But £95 a week is not the end of the world if they could afford it - what I thought was interesting was that the local shopper could save quite a lot of money but it took time. She also needed a shopping trolley - did you see them staggering back from the market.

Larumbelle

thriftmonster wrote: »

Can I just make the point without getting shot down completely that OS is not all about having the cheapest food budget, like some sort of competition - it should be about getting the best value, not being wasteful etc.

No shooting down here, Thriftmonster, I agree with you 100%! For me OS is about getting the balance of having a fantastic quality of life I can at the best price I can get it. Since I 'became' OS my food budget has shot down but the quality and quantity of good food has gone up so much! I think that's why the big debate on food winds me up so much. We keep being fobbed off with the excuse that poor people need cheap food to justify pretty much everything the supermarkets decide they want to do. Only in Britain (alright, and the USA) is there this idea that poor people deserve to eat any old junk so long as the price is right. Class is not a food issue anywhere else; there's a cultural expectation that, while the poor might not be eating exactly the same food as the wealthy, there is still good cheap food and a thriving food culture. In this country the expectation of good food is almost seen as something decadent, something to be ashamed of. It is changing, slowly, now, but the damage has already been done.

Penelope_Penguin

thriftmonster wrote: »

Can I just make the point without getting shot down completely that OS is not all about having the cheapest food budget, like some sort of competition - it should be about getting the best value, not being wasteful etc.

I think Penelope Penguin quoted Nigella once as saying she may be extravagent but is never wasteful. That's me as well. I never post about my food budget because I just know that I would get the "OMG I could feed our family for 3 years on that" etc

You are so right - Martin has never said that MSE should be about buying cheapest, rather doing what you want to do but doing it cheaper :T I'm like silvercharming - my budget hasn't dropped using MSE, I've been able to use the money we saved buying better (DH spent £12 on steak from the butcher for the 4 of us last night - expensive but soooooooooo worth it).

Another of my favourite phrases - Buy cheap, buy twice No point buying cheap food if you need extras to make it palatable, or buying a cheap pan that lasts 5 years, rather than one twice as expensive that lasts 20

Penny. x

thriftlady_2

thriftmonster wrote: »

I think Penelope Penguin quoted Nigella once as saying she may be extravagent but is never wasteful. That's me as well. I never post about my food budget because I just know that I would get the "OMG I could feed our family for 3 years on that" etc

Well said :T That's me as well:D I don't post my budget either for the same reasons.

I definitely see OS as making the most of what you have at your disposal whatever your budget happens to be;)

A_fiend_for_life

thriftlady wrote: »

I wonder if the price hike in Dorset is due to The River Cottage effect down there Joe? I applaud Hugh FW for his food campaigning and I love his books but I gather from the River Cottage forums that he charges a fortune for his porduce.


I too avoid my local farmer's market mainly because it is on a Sunday and I don't like shopping on Sundays (not for religious reasons) but also because it is flaming expensive. I prefer a farmshop where I can get 4 pints of milk for £1.25 and 20 kg of spuds for £4. Local is my watchword;)

It's the same up here. meat and veg from the town market is a silly price because it is en vogue and some people are prepared to pay more. Many of the stall holders are young and know their is a trend for local produce. I hope it will settle down and they start charging realistic prices. I suspect if they kept realistic prices when the going was good they would have built up a reliable customer base and they would be more likely to weather the recession. But by treating it as a fashion rather than a necessity they may just go out of fashion unfortunately.

At a local car boot sale there are a couple of stalls run by old hands. Local produce at local prices and they're usually sold out. They are also competitive with the supermarkets and round the price down.

One affordable greengrocer and one well presented greengrocer in the city centre have closed down the nearest 'local' greengrocer is a 5 mile train journey. There is another green grocer but at silly prices. It is cheaper to go on the train.

Cazzdevil

I found the documentary rather misleading to be honest. I thought it was going to be about value ranges and cheap ingredients rather than cheap prepared foods. I have no problem what so ever with buying value veg/tins/meats etc but I wouldn't dream of buying value burgers/sausages/pies etc. Frankly I'd rather have something of a good quality once a week than a rubbish processed version 3 times a week.

It would seem that a lot of people are under the misaprehension that you need to eat some form of meat every single day.

ScoobieGirl

geordie_joe wrote: »

...the woman who sells fruit and veg at the Saturday market sells "locally farm grown carrots" for 60p for 2LB but at the farmers market she sells "locally farm grown carrots" at £3 per LB. ...

Thank you. You have saved me a trip to the Farmers market. I always wondered whether it was more of a trendy thing rather than people going to support the farmers direct. I'm happy to pay a fair price to the farmer, but don't like to feel they are taking the mick. I guess it's a personal thing where you draw the line between running a business and charging what the market will pay, and raising prices at an event that is often pitched as a fairer less commercially greedy way to buy your veg.

Has anyone had any experiences of Farm shops changing thier prices for who they are selling to e.g. raising prices during times the working couple is likely to shop?