Cooking for one

PasturesNew

SunnyGirl wrote: »

Hash brown, sausage and beans sounds a cracking brekkie to me PN

Morning all. I tweeted Aldi last night and have had a reply asking me to message them with my problem. I'm going to say that as a singlie, and one of 7million, why don't they sell fruit and veg loose. Only selling prepackaged produce is forcing us to go to the big supermarkets or local shops which are more expensive and why we shop at Aldi in the first place. What do you think?

I thought hash/sausage/beans sounded good.... but I'm also aware that the burgers need eating up, so was thinking of burger instead of hash .... but that "sounds more like lunch" ...so I've not chosen.

I could just go out and buy more honey nut cornflakes and a loaf.... that'll take me through for breakfasts this coming week as I countdown to Free-Freezer Day.

Post it on their Twitter page - no need to "message" them, which is private.... you might get 1million others sharing it
If it's in their message box you've disappeared... gone...nobody will know.

I suspect your tweet wasn't even answered by a human at all - sounds like a Bot response.

Having said that, a bit of time on hashtag research wouldn't go amiss.

I never get round to Twitter.... I should, I've got accounts, but I've never got round to getting into the habit of using it.

Maybe now I've got round to defrosting the freezer, I should add "Tweet 1x a Week" to my new "things to get round to doing"

An alternative route might be to investigate if there are any Facebook pages dedicated to getting loose veggies on sale - and see what they're up to/join those groups and get vocal. I think I'll do that for now.... fills a gap to stop me thinking about food.

PasturesNew

First result I found to see if there's a campaign, gave me this as a starting point, from 6 days ago ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4567984/Supermarkets-fuel-waste-ditching-loose-fruit-veg.html

"vegetable vigilantes went as far as ripping open bags in one store"

I don't fancy being a vigilante
That's a step too far for me.

Asda has been singled out by waste campaigners after launching a trial of selling certain vegetables only in packets but a survey by the Daily Mail found it is not alone among major supermarkets in refusing to sell types of fresh produce loose.

Look, the WI did a study 84% preferred loose

It insists there is good evidence that shoppers prefer to buy in packs, despite a recent study by the WI which found that 84 per cent of people preferred buying fruit and veg loose.

Graphic/table of who sells what:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/06/03/01/4109F20B00000578-0-image-m-18_1496449606081.jpg

As I see it, packs can give a better £/100g value (but not always as they sometimes use packaging to fool people) .... but I only want ONE of stuff.

I often walk away because ONE would cost, say, 50p, whereas a shop's selling a "pack of 4" for 60p-£1. So I feel ripped off and just leave without making any purchase at all. For me they are losing business.

I would say - ditto for doughnuts. In Sainsbobs I can buy a pack of 5 jam doughnuts in a bag for 65p. At the end of the aisle are the single doughnuts, costing 50p each. I want 1 .... I don't want to pay 50p for one, knowing that somebody round the corner that can/will eat 5 gets to buy them for 13p each.

I always check the doughnuts for reductions .... and once every 2 years I can find a bag there reduced to about 30p and I buy them... then scoff the lot

I just went to double check the price of a single doughnut on the sainsbobs website - and they don't list the single doughnuts available for sale online! You can only buy the bagged ones.

moneyistooshorttomention

SunnyGirl wrote: »

Hash brown, sausage and beans sounds a cracking brekkie to me PN

Morning all. I tweeted Aldi last night and have had a reply asking me to message them with my problem. I'm going to say that as a singlie, and one of 7million, why don't they sell fruit and veg loose. Only selling prepackaged produce is forcing us to go to the big supermarkets or local shops which are more expensive and why we shop at Aldi in the first place. What do you think?

"Yes" in a word to that.

I would think the magic words to throw into the equation currently are "food waste" too. Supermarkets have a bit of a sore spot at the moment re that (thanks to Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall et al).

- so...yep....forcing us to look elsewhere for our few bits we want and adding to "food waste" in our society.

Add in a comment too (by the words about there being 7 million of us) to the effect of there are an increasing number of single people households.

Errrrm....what else? Well, in this day and age - even in multi-person households there is a good chance that at least one of the household members is eating differently. Time was some decades ago where families would sit down and all eat the same meal together. These days - there is a good chance that many families eat differently and, say, one is vegetarian, one eats healthily (whilst the rest eat junk food), another has allergies and so on. So, one way and another, many of us now expect to eat more "individually" (iyswim) - rather than "fitting in" with the rest of the household even if we aren't single.

SunnyGirl

Absolute geniuses both of you and I'm onto it! I love twitter and don't have Facebook. I tweet companies as like you say PN they don't like the negative connotations. Will keep you informed and pop back later to read your fab links x

SunnyGirl

I have now also tweeted Lidl with the same query and used the hashtag #foodwaste

PasturesNew

SunnyGirl wrote: »

I have now also tweeted Lidl with the same query and used the hashtag #foodwaste

ooh you little militant.
I hate to stand above a parapet.... happy to give others a leg up if they want to stick their head over .... but going first has never been my thing

I'm more of a back room researcher/supporter ... I don't like the public glare

My take on it, though, is that I think the big bully boys will dig their heels in - because they don't really care about waste, they are keen on profits.

A better strategy might be to pinpoint sales they lost ..... it'd need a bit of a thought how to effectively word that so they think they're missing out.

They say they've done studies... but what studies, who did they ask, how did they word/skew their questions?

EVERYBODY can benefit from having loose available ...
Supermarkets lose because: 1. loose tends to be cheaper 2. more people are sucked in by the grabbable packaging of a bag 3. bags can be easier to market in "deals".

By sticking it in bags, in "deals", they can double the price of the goods and make more people want it /grab it on auto-pilot.

SunnyGirl

Very good point with the studies. Now it just so happens that I'm a uni student studying psychology and criminology so am very au fait with finding studies. Hmmm will look into that this evening. Feel free to post any links and I will too when I've had a good scan through the uni library database.

I'm not usually so militant but having read through and joined this thread I am feeing like a forgotten household in modern Britain with the greedy supermarkets ruling all. It's not fair and not nice. Personally I feel as though they were happy to take my money when I was feeding 5 people 3 times a day but that they don't give a hoot now that I want to buy loose goods at my supermarket of choice. I don't want to have to trail to Yesco or
Asda who aren't doing that well anyway looking at the graphic you posted PN.

Doom_and_Gloom

PasturesNew wrote: »

EVERYBODY can benefit from having loose available ...
Supermarkets lose because: 1. loose tends to be cheaper 2. more people are sucked in by the grabbable packaging of a bag 3. bags can be easier to market in "deals".

By sticking it in bags, in "deals", they can double the price of the goods and make more people want it /grab it on auto-pilot.

Have to admit only a few items at my local supermarket are cheaper loose; broccoli, red onions and bananas are all I can think of that are cheaper loose. Nets/bags of fruits and vegetables are usually cheaper. That's why even though my OH rarely takes the odd item of vegetable (an onion or a carrot for example), so I'm in essence buying for me, I buy the bags/nets, especially when reduced.

My OH likes granny smith apples, but rarely. He still has one in the fruit bowl from a reduced pack he bought over a month ago. I don't eat that apple variety hense why it is still there. To buy one loose would cost 30p+, the pack of them cost less per apple before they were reduced; though by average weight online apparently loose should work out cheaper for these apples I found this is never the case. The weights are always more than the average.

We are the kind of household moneyistooshorttomention was on about. Differences in diet cause problems when buying.

PasturesNew

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Nets/bags of fruits and vegetables are usually cheaper. That's why even though my OH rarely takes the odd item of vegetable (an onion or a carrot for example), so I'm in essence buying for me, I buy the bags/nets, especially when reduced.

I hate the way they often just sell a "pack of 6" and there's no indication as to £/100g. Shops have also removed the weighing scales you used to be able to use to check.

Maybe we should all arm ourselves with a set of pocket scales and a folding table. Sit down in the shop and weigh everything out, do the maths on a bit of paper, then put back what we don't want, and fold up our table into the trolley

For cheapest/100g I'll browse mysupermarket "as a leisure activity" - and I compare every price on every shelf when I am actually buying stuff.

As for YS food ... I very very very very very rarely see any of this. Anything I do see reduced is either by 10p or is something expensive/not the food I eat anyway.

Doom_and_Gloom

The per against g/kg gets me angry. They should have to do it in a universal way. Then we as the customer have the knowledge needed to help us budget.

At my local they have the weighing scales. I just think they should change them to electric. That way people have an easier time of budgeting if buying loose. At the moment it's more like 'i think I have £x.xx of *item* but I'm not sure...I'll round up to be sure' it drives me mad. How does that help people on a fixed budget?

I know the times for good reductions in my local. I'm sad I know but needs must.