Going to the market vs going to the supermarket

Guapa1

I wrote this blog entry and thought I would share it here.

This week I wanted to see if it really was worth the effort going my local market instead of going to the supermarket.
My market still has most of their signs in pounds. I’ve converted it to grams for comparison. Now 500g is 1.102 pounds, but for ease I’m going to go with 500g=1lb.
I used Asda as the comparison because it came up as the cheapest when I used mysupermarket.com.
Mushrooms
Asda price £1.39p for 500g
Market £1 for 500g
Baby Plum tomatoes
Asda price £2 for 500g
Market 70p for 500g
Carrots
Asda Price 40p for 500g
Market 50p for 500g
Peppers
Asda price £1 for 2
Market 96p for 2
Lime
Asda price 20p each x 8 = £1.60
Market 8 =£1
Eggs
Now the market eggs say that they are free range, but have no markings on them, so I’m going to compare them to the normal range to be fair.
Asda Price 6 eggs = £1.37
Market 6 eggs = 80p
Apples
Asda price = £1.47 a kilo 2.1 kilo =£3.087
Market 8=£1 I weighed the 8 and it was 2.1kg. That’s roughly about 50p for a kg.
Galia melon - This is a hard one to compare because I don’t know what size the Asda ones are. The one I got from the market was quite small. I’m not going to include this in the comparison, but here are the prices anyway.
Asda price £1
Market £1 (2 for £1, and I gave my friend one, and she gave me half of her spring onion)

Total
Asda total £10.85
Market total £5.96 :money:



Additional comments
Onions were 35p/lb in the market, which is 500g. Onions in Asda are 87p/kg so it’s cheaper to buy at the market but
Lidl had a special offer on this week 1kg =34p.
8 apples weighted 2.1kg. When I started to put 2.1 kgs worth of apples in the mysupermarket.com trolley it got up to about 12 before I just decided to do the calculation. LOL :rotfl:

Supermarket bits
Smoked mackerel with peppercorns
Asda price £7.92/kg 300g = £2.38
Lidl £7.667/kg 300g = £2.30
Mangoes
Asda £1 each 3= £3
Lidl 39p each (special offer) 3=£1.17
Onions
Asda 87p
Lidl 34p

Frozen Sweetcorn I was really surprised that this wasn’t sold in Lidl. As you can see Asda is significantly cheaper, but when I drove into the car park it was full and I wasn’t going to queue for 1 item.
Asda 68p/kg
Iceland £1/kg
Salad seeds
Asda 93.8/100g 175g =£1.64

Lidl 45.1/100g = 79p

Total
Asda =£8.51
Lidl/Iceland = £5.60
So all in all I spent £11.56. The same basket in Asda would have been £19.36 (excluding the melon):money:

I got more than I had set out to buy for less than the original shopping trolley!
As long as I can get a friend to help me, I’ll definitely be making more use of my market.

sunflower76

And far less packaging at the market too. I usually do a market shop but didn't have time yesterday as we'd been away. Almost everything I bought from the supermarket came in a box and / or a bag which is ridiculous.

kedger25

We go to the market every week to get our fruit/veg/eggs for the week as its so much cheaper!y'day we got 3 lots of apples at a pound a bowl,=24 apples,mix of braeburn,some REALLY red ones and some pink lady=£3,2 big bunches of bananas 1 green,1 yellow=£2,2 punnets of apricots=£1,2 punnets of plums=£1,2 cues=£1,bowls of vine toms+£1,bowl of sats with around 12 in£1,bowl of pears £1,2 lettuce £1,Bowl of peppers(6)£1,so £13 altogether!result!!!
Eggs are 80p a box for large free range,and always get 3 boxes.

luxor4t

Our local market strikes me as pricy, but I haven't checked for a while.

I'm going to do some research this week

SunnyGirl

luxor4t wrote: »

Our local market strikes me as pricy, but I haven't checked for a while.

I'm going to do some research this week

I'll do this as well as I've been to the market before for fruit & veg and ended up spending more. I'm not sure though if it's because I buy more as I'm stood in front of such a lovely display We are also very lucky having a fab meat & fish market too so I'll double check those prices too. Our local market is one of the country's best & has won awards apparently so I'll hope that this doesn't increase prices. It's Bury Market in Lancashire if anyone wants to have a look its here

Gigervamp

We only have one fruit/veg stall in our market and one greengrocer nearby. I've tried both of them and the quality of their produce wasn't very good. The fruit I bought went off in a couple of days and the potatoes were soft and spongy.

Having said that, a couple of the car boot fairs nearby have stalls selling fruit and veg and they're good quality and very cheap, but I can't get there every week.

BitterAndTwisted

The main difference I've found, apart from prices, is that at the market things are generally ready to eat and will barely make it to the next weekend where at the supermarket a lot of things are under-ripe. I bought some bananas the weekend before last in Lidl and they weren't good to eat until early last week. I loathe under-ripe bananas: they taste like soap to me, same goes for avocados.

tessie_bear

thank u op for taking the time to post all those figures...very interesting...i buy fruit and veg off the market but find it can be a bit hit and miss...sometimes its lovely...very fresh and cheap...sometimes though (like yesterday)i went round coventry food market and thought the f and v looked dire...wilted yellow where it should have been green....ended up buying nowt which was a shame

i agree with poster that sais market stuff doent keep and can be quite ripe/ready to use...i would say though markets are always worth a look

tha aldi 6 are great this month...we have had 2 lots of everything and it is only 7th ? june

lynzpower

SunnyGirl wrote: »

I'll do this as well as I've been to the market before for fruit & veg and ended up spending more. I'm not sure though if it's because I buy more as I'm stood in front of such a lovely display We are also very lucky having a fab meat & fish market too so I'll double check those prices too. Our local market is one of the country's best & has won awards apparently so I'll hope that this doesn't increase prices. It's Bury Market in Lancashire if anyone wants to have a look its here

bury market is brilliant. As I remember it there were loads of cheese sellers as well as bargain clothes. I am a huge fan of markets and this is by far one of my favourites.

Is there still a "cake man" there as well.

lynzpower

tessie_bear wrote: »

thank u op for taking the time to post all those figures...very interesting...i buy fruit and veg off the market but find it can be a bit hit and miss...sometimes its lovely...very fresh and cheap...sometimes though (like yesterday)i went round coventry food market and thought the f and v looked dire...wilted yellow where it should have been green....ended up buying nowt which was a shame

i agree with poster that sais market stuff doent keep and can be quite ripe/ready to use...i would say though markets are always worth a look

tha aldi 6 are great this month...we have had 2 lots of everything and it is only 7th ? june

A lot of market sellers but food that has been rejected by supermarkets. ( my dad works in the fresh produce trade)

My local market ( which is prety hit & miss) is Londons EAST STREET market in Se17. One of the traders there regularly has sainsburys labelled prepacked veg at 3 for a quid ( baby corn/ mangetout/ green beans etc)

BitterAndTwisted

lynzpower wrote: »

A lot of market sellers buy food that has been rejected by supermarkets. ( my dad works in the fresh produce trade)

That doesn't surprise me at all. I suspect the rejection has more to do with uniformity of size rather than the actual quality. I can't remember the last time I ate an apple with a skin blemish, never mind a bruise.

I'm really sorry that I don't work near Berwick Street market any more. Popping round there at about 4.30 often meant picking stuff up for next to nothing. Those were the days.