Sneaky pricing at supermarkets!

stephen77

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

It's nice to see that some people have perfect eye sight and the ability to check all shelf labels and make good decisions.

My elderly Dad struggles like hell if he has to shop, he can't bend to look at lower shelf labels and is reliant on the "big price" that is shown. As we know Supermarkets marketing strategy is to put better value items on the lower and higher shelves, for those with limited mobility it's really tricky.

He also just doesn't "get" that prices change all the time and that he needs to check every price. If we're going to talk about ye olde days then the reality is that prices didn't change on a daily or weekly basis, they were priced up manually and mainly stayed the same over a much longer period of time and only changed in line with inflation and the price of ingredients etc.

food inflation is quite a high at the moment.

all the things mentioned above do not make it sneaky, just unfortanetely difficult for your dad which is different question.

geordie_joe

stephen77 wrote: »

If they were doing per 54.6g then I would agree that would be confusing and pointless.

Slightly off topic, but that reminds me of a post i made a while ago, about the high fat content in a well known brand of sausage. The thread died off, but I went back to it a couple of months later to check my facts. And I found that they had changed the way they list the fat content from g per 100g of uncooked sausage to g per grilled sausage, weight unknown.

Unless you spot the change in column headings, it now looks like the sausages have less than half the fat they used to, and less than half the fat of other similar quality sausages.

It is simple to me, the law requires manufacturers/shops to supply us with certain information, but the manufacturers/shops are deliberately making it difficult for us to read/understand/use and compare that information.

geordie_joe

One that annoyed me a few months ago, Morrisons own brand tomatoes. A pack of 4 had the price per tomato, but the six pack had the price per 100g.

There was no weight listed on the 4 pack, so how do you figure which pack is the better value, without removing the tomatoes from the packaging and weighing them.

The tomatoes in one pack were quite a bit bigger than the ones in the other too, so a waste of time just dividing the price of the six pack by 6 to get the price per tomato.

stephen77

geordie_joe wrote: »

Slightly off topic, but that reminds me of a post i made a while ago, about the high fat content in a well known brand of sausage. The thread died off, but I went back to it a couple of months later to check my facts. And I found that they had changed the way they list the fat content from g per 100g of uncooked sausage to g per grilled sausage, weight unknown.

Unless you spot the change in column headings, it now looks like the sausages have less than half the fat they used to, and less than half the fat of other similar quality sausages.

It is simple to me, the law requires manufacturers/shops to supply us with certain information, but the manufacturers/shops are deliberately making it difficult for us to read/understand/use and compare that information.

in a ideal world you would put both as lots of people will put 2 sausage on there plate rather than 120g of sausage.

Things getting in the way of this are A) space on packaging cost. (this is more for your smaller independant supplies)

Pitlanepiglet

stephen77 wrote: »

food inflation is quite a high at the moment.

all the things mentioned above do not make it sneaky, just unfortanetely difficult for your dad which is different question.

They go up and down...it's not just inflation. Partially it's about prices being increased one month so that they can be reduced the following month as a "roll back".

TBH we've got the message that you don't think supermarkets are sneaky, you've got that point over quite a lot! You can keep saying the same things but it won't make everyone agree with you!

geordie_joe

stephen77 wrote: »

in a ideal world you would put both as lots of people will put 2 sausage on there plate rather than 120g of sausage.

To be honest I don't give a flying f@ck how many sausages people put on their plate. The fact is, every packet of sausages I have ever looked at lists the fat content by g per 100g of uncooked sausage.

One manufacturer changing this to the g per one grilled sausage is a clear indication that that manufacturer is trying to confuse it's customers.

You could also say in an ideal world they would list the content of a fried sausage, and one cooked in an oven, and one fried on veg oil and one fried in lard and one fried in dripping etc. etc.

But in reality, in an ideal world all manufacturers would list in the same way. I don't particularly care what that way is, as long as it's all the same so everyone will find it easy to compare.

stephen77 wrote: »

Things getting in the way of this are A) space on packaging cost. (this is more for your smaller independant supplies)

They were listing in g per 100g of uncooked sausage, to change it cost them more than it would have to leave it alone.

stephen77

geordie_joe wrote: »

To be honest I don't give a flying f@ck how many sausages people put on their plate. The fact is, every packet of sausages I have ever looked at lists the fat content by g per 100g of uncooked sausage.

One manufacturer changing this to the g per one grilled sausage is a clear indication that that manufacturer is trying to confuse it's customers. .

Some customer would argue and probably had people calling for it on here as well they rather have nutritional information than per 100grams as they do not have scales etc.
The manufacturer may think they are helping rather than confusing. Its not there fault other manufacturers do not follow suit.
However I prefer 100g over portion size.
Probablem with portion size is that many are different.

Lots of products give both portion size and per 100g.

geordie_joe wrote: »

You could also say in an ideal world they would list the content of a fried sausage, and one cooked in an oven, and one fried on veg oil and one fried in lard and one fried in dripping etc. etc.

But in reality, in an ideal world all manufacturers would list in the same way. I don't particularly care what that way is, as long as it's all the same so everyone will find it easy to compare.

.

problem is that different companies think there way is better. WHile sausages may be relative standard in 6 sausage often weighing 454g.
Other products have a much more varying range of portion sizes.

Kellogs put both per 100g and a 40g portion of cereal with 125ml of skimmed milk.
To me the portion size is irrelvant as I have much more cereal and milk. But it is consistant across there products and some of there compeitors

Storck

geordie_joe wrote: »

One that annoyed me a few months ago, Morrisons own brand tomatoes. A pack of 4 had the price per tomato, but the six pack had the price per 100g.

There was no weight listed on the 4 pack, so how do you figure which pack is the better value, without removing the tomatoes from the packaging and weighing them.

The tomatoes in one pack were quite a bit bigger than the ones in the other too, so a waste of time just dividing the price of the six pack by 6 to get the price per tomato.

It might be that the pack that is done per 100g is sold as a set weight, eg 250g and it is therefore possible to work out price per 100g whereas the other is sold as 4 tomatoes and each pack might weigh different.

geordie_joe

stephen77 wrote: »

Some customer would argue and probably had people calling for it on here as well they rather have nutritional information than per 100grams as they do not have scales etc.

It's all nutritional information! You don't need scales when given the fat per 100g, it's e\sy to work out as it's the same as the percentage.

if you have 25g of fat per 100g of sausage then the sausage is 25% fat.

stephen77 wrote: »

The manufacturer may think they are helping rather than confusing.

And they may think "Yipee, our sausage now looks like it has less fat than the others."

stephen77 wrote: »

Its not there fault other manufacturers do not follow suit.

It's their fault THEY don't follow suite, it's THEIR fault they changed to a more confusing system.

stephen77 wrote: »

However I prefer 100g over portion size.

And so do we all, so why spend all that money on changing?

stephen77 wrote: »

Probablem with portion size is that many are different.

You are missing the point, it's not the portion size that is confusing, it the fact that they give the fat content for a GRILLED sausage, which is no use if you are going to fry it of bung it in the oven.

stephen77 wrote: »

Lots of products give both portion size and per 100g.



problem is that different companies think there way is better. WHile sausages may be relative standard in 6 sausage often weighing 454g.
Other products have a much more varying range of portion sizes.

Kellogs put both per 100g and a 40g portion of cereal with 125ml of skimmed milk.
To me the portion size is irrelvant as I have much more cereal and milk. But it is consistant across there products and some of there compeitors

It's not the portion size, it's the fact that they give the portion size for a grilled sausage.

By only giving the fat content of one grilled sausage, and not saying how much that sausage weights, it makes it impossible to compare the fat content with any other sausage.

So the question is, why make it impossible to compare the fat content of their sausages with any other brand?

Is it because their sausages have less fat in them, or more fat?

Stompa

Finding myself in Tesco this evening, I took a look at the unit prices on the shelf labels. The sizes are not all that consistent. Most are the same size, but there are some which are around half that and some which are double. My eyesight is not all that great, but even without glasses I could read all three.

Having said that, the double size ones seemed like a sensible size to me. Relatively easy to read for most people I'd imagine, but still significantly smaller than the product price.