Discussion thread on Supermarket prices - are they becoming too high?

Enterprise_1701C

Our local Lidl has had a massive change around too - enough to make you wake up in the morning!

As for them trying to look more like Aldi, you may be right - we also have an Aldi across the road from Lidl and the layout is now quite similar.

xanthe

Went to Lidl last Thursday. Avocado slashed from 50p to 49p!

Villa198

We called in our local Lidl on Sunday to use our DM moc, it looked like a bomb site I presume theses changes must be national, you do need to watch the dates of offers because as discussed elswhere they change every few days, some are only available at weekends, others Mon to Wed you just have to look carefully.

ghanagirl

There are 4 reasons for this
1
slaughter houses have reduced workers hours and material costs are shooting up in brazil were 90% of corned beef is tinned as mentioned above.
Beleive it or not after the Falklands War Dozen's of countries still boycott Argentine products so they moved most of the corned beef production to Brazil.

2
Argentine and brazilian farmers have slaughtered 30 million cattle this year and because of the high cost of cattle feed have turned to growing Soya instead so there are less animals around.

3
Shipping costs have shot up due to the amount of shipping need to move goods around the world, i.e lots of manufacturing moving to asia esp china. There is a global shortage of shipping containers so prices of materials are rising as containers are being ordered for the first time in 7 years, which pushed up the price of tin plate.

4
The dollar to the pound.

you should buy plenty if you find a good use by date as the price is expected to hit £2.50 for a 354g tin by the end of the year.
Ye olde oak have decided to stop selling corned beef because there is not enough profit in it.

zenseeker

Ours changed around too, must be a national change. All stores raise and lower prices, no real news there, all depends on supplies I guess, maybe there is a shortage of Salmon and Sardines? Any other supermarkets increases prices on these?

Hippeechiq

Very interesting - thank you for that

parsonswife8

Thanks for your post OP

Very perceptive of you.

Going to stock up.

:beer:

geordie_joe

ghanagirl wrote: »

There are 4 reasons for this
1
slaughter houses have reduced workers hours and material costs are shooting up in brazil were 90% of corned beef is tinned as mentioned above.

This may be true, I don't know.

ghanagirl wrote: »

Beleive it or not after the Falklands War Dozen's of countries still boycott Argentine products so they moved most of the corned beef production to Brazil.

This is not true. Well there may be dozens of countries who boycott Argentine products because of the Falklands War, but this has nothing to do with corned beef.

I do remember the shops taking corned beef off the shelves when Argentina invaded the Falklands, but this was a misguided act. The UK had not imported corned beef from Argentina since 1964. Not officially, just that nobody here would buy/eat it and no company would risk importing it. And I wouldn't be surprised if no other countries imported corned beef from Argentina either.

Not that we ever imported much corned beef from Argentina in the first place, most of it came from Brazil and Uruguay, by a company that named it's corned beef after the town/port the corned beef was canned in and shipped from. Do a google search for "Fray Bentos"

ghanagirl wrote: »

2
Argentine and brazilian farmers have slaughtered 30 million cattle this year and because of the high cost of cattle feed have turned to growing Soya instead so there are less animals around.

I don't know about Brazil, but this is not true for Argentina. In Argentina cattle is not "fed", it is left to fend for it's self and eat the grass. This is why it is considered to be the best beef in the world.

However, farmers have been slaughtering cattle in Argentina, but not because of the price of feed, they don't buy it. The Argentine government thinks the best way to keep the economy stable is to severely restrict imports and exports. As a result they have put a very high tax on exported beef, as well as restriction as the who you can export it too. This resulted in Argentina having far too much beef, even though people in Argentina eat twice as much beef as people in the USA, there is still far too much beef. The farmers can't sell it in Argentina and they can't export it, so some of them have gone over to making money in other ways, and mostly this has been growing soya. But it has nothing to do with the price of feed.

ghanagirl wrote: »

3
Shipping costs have shot up due to the amount of shipping need to move goods around the world, i.e lots of manufacturing moving to asia esp china. There is a global shortage of shipping containers so prices of materials are rising as containers are being ordered for the first time in 7 years, which pushed up the price of tin plate.

It's true, shipping prices have gone up, and this year there is a shortage of containers, but the increase in the price of tin is very small compared to the cost of a tin of corned beef.

I think you'll find the real reason for the price of corned beef is because of the Marfrig Group.

In 2007 they "floated on the stock market", issued shares to the public. With the money from those shares they set about a massive expansion of the company. They set out to corner the meat market in south america, and have just about done it.

They acquired a lot of slaughter house and meat canning factories and bought up 39 companies world wide, and are still trying to buy more. They are now the;

3rd Largest producer of beef meat products in the world
2nd Largest producer and exporter of poultry further processed products of Brazil
The largest beef Company in Argentina
The largest poultry products processor in UK
The largest private Company in Uruguay

They are also heavily in debt (they owe 4.4 times more than they earn) and have a large number of shareholders demanding a return on their investment. One way they are increasing their income is by increasing the price of corned beef.

Browntoa

seen this in Sainsburys in Paternoster Square London for 73p so may be only some stores

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/sainsburys-price-comparison/Tinned_Meat_And_Poultry/Sainsburys_Corned_Beef_340g.html

ghanagirl

geordie_joe wrote: »

This may be true, I don't know.

Geordie joe i have just checked your posting history and its almost entirely argumentative.
You think i made it up so i will post links to back up what i read in The Grocer Magazine months ago it took me some time to go through the back issues then find the article online but here it is.

http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/articles.aspx?page=articles&ID=208945

Decline of Argentina's Beef industry.
The below article also backs up my statement that most Cattle are now factory fed because their grazing area's have been planted with soya and they get government subs to buy feed for them.
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2010/03/29/120557/David-Richardson-Argentina39s-beef-decline.htm
http://www.thecattlesite.com/news/30994/argentinean-beef-supplies-fade

The Uk's total agricultual land cover 18.5 million hectares.
Argentina's soybean crop covers 24.9 million hectares and is growning by 20% a year.
Brazils soya fields cover 46.8 million hectares.

In the articles below you can read that EU quota's have slashed the amount of Meat allowed to be exported to the EU from Brazil.
http://www.thecattlesite.com/news/31222/brazilian-mission-to-unlock-eu-beef-negotiations

When was the last time you saw 20 combine harvesters side by side bringing in a harvest
http://nimg.sulekha.com/business/original700/brazil-soybean-harvest-2010-4-1-11-41-47.jpg