Food price hikes!!

maman

Twenty years hence this weather
May tempt us from office stools,
We may be slow on the feather
And seem to the boys old fools,
But we'll still swing together
And swear by the best of schools,
But we'll still swing together
And swear by the best of schools.

You're probably wondering what this has to do with the price of fish but it occurred to me that this maybe where 'we're all in this together' came from.;)

And I'm confident that young Gideon doesn't know the price of fish either!:rotfl:

Cornucopia

Lidl & Aldi definitely seem less prone to these price hikes.

Add on sensible and genuinely useful promotions like Super 6 and Half-price Weekend offers, and I really don't know why people bother with the big 4.

In fact, there does seems to be some evidence that fierce price stablility/competition from Lidl & Aldi is keeping down the prices of key products - certainly in Asda, which I occasionally venture in to.

I_luv_cats wrote: »

Apples ... are astronomical in some places or you only get a few in a value bag!

Apples were on Aldi Super 6 for the past 2 weeks: 69p for 9 small apples.

A._Badger

Six limes for £1 in my local open air market yesterday.

I don't know about abandoning the 'big four' for Aldi or Lidl but why people don't patronise markets more (where they still exist) I really don't know.

prowla

I look at the price and if I don't like it then I don't buy. I don't usually go in with a preconceived idea of what I'm getting, so I can pick and choose.

Tesco's feed your family for a fiver turned into £6.

Rice jumped up in price.

Meat is expensive.

And cheese is daft!

I went to Aldi the other day.

Tesco prices are getting silly, and they are losing my business because of it.

(Sainsburys are still more expensive though...)

Edwardia

Supermarkets get suppliers to pay for offers to attract customers and many customers can't discipline themselves not to buy other offers. Before buying most food online I would often get OH to go shopping as he was great at just picking up offers.

However, it's not necessarily food on which we can save the most money. Bought a new Sealy bed £500 off on offer at Sainsbury's online earlier this month which is more than I'd save on special offers on food in a year, probably.

Cornucopia

There's two ways to look at it:

1. How much can I save against the money I know I'm going to have to spend?

2. How little can I spend to get the things I need?

Whilst they may sound superficially similar, they reflect different ways of shopping, and a fundamentally different attitude to money. The Big 4 supermarkets, I think, exploit people who mainly think in mode #1.

maman

prowla wrote: »

I look at the price and if I don't like it then I don't buy. I don't usually go in with a preconceived idea of what I'm getting, so I can pick and choose.

Tesco's feed your family for a fiver turned into £6.

Rice jumped up in price.

Meat is expensive.

And cheese is daft!

I went to Aldi the other day.

Tesco prices are getting silly, and they are losing my business because of it.

(Sainsburys are still more expensive though...)

I went to Sainsbury's today and Pilgrim's Choice was on offer. That was £7.14 per kg instead of £14.29:eek: My idea of good a good offer on cheese (I try only to use a little for cooking) is £5 per kg or £6 max.

Interestingly I've noticed the balance between what I get in Aldi and Sainsbury changing hugely. It's now just a few bits in Sainsbury's and I could probably manage without if really pushed.

Nada666

maman wrote: »

I went to Sainsbury's today and Pilgrim's Choice was on offer. That was £7.14 per kg instead of £14.29:eek: My idea of good a good offer on cheese (I try only to use a little for cooking) is £5 per kg or £6 max.

£6.25 in Morrisons. (£2 per pack. Assuming it was 320 rather than 350g).

dktreesea

kippers wrote: »

It's not just Tesco putting prices up...
A few days ago I went to Asda to buy strong white flour (it was cheapest there at 60p a bag) but the shelf was empty. I went back this morning and it has gone up to 80p per bag :shocked::shocked::shocked:

I knew it was going to go up due to bad harvests this year, but 20p!

I wish they would stop having offers on junk food and start having offers in staples instead...but we all know this isn't going to happen...but it gets harder each year to feed a family a healthy meal.

It's not just the harvests. It's the depreciation of the pound, especially against the currencies of major wheat growing countries like Australia and the USA.

Cornucopia

And yet, Aldi have just finished 2 weeks of American Sweet Potatoes on Super 6 at 750g for 69p.

I think what is happening is this: Aldi & Lidl are small stores with only a few staff. They are flexible in dealing with the effects of recession. The Big 4 have large stores with many, many staff and are therefore less flexible - if takings are down, the same staff costs have to be covered. I think that the price hikes are as much about covering the fixed costs of the supermarket sites whilst takings are down as about increased raw materials cost rises.

And Aldi figures are up 30% and Lidl up 12% - people are swapping, and they are swapping from somewhere.