Supermarket Secrets revealed?

tootles_2

We have a lady who comes to our local market from Lincolnshire, she grows spuds, cabbage, cauli carrots etc and also brings free range eggs, her prices are very reasonable, meat however is a different kettle of fish, I have looked at the organic butchers, the thought of having to pay £3 a lb for mince fills me with dread, when living on a very restrictive income meat at this price is not on, neither is £7.99 for a chicken, that would have to last me for a week at least at that price. We do not eat a lot of meat but do enjoy an OS Sunday Lunch...... that would have to go for a start.

I have used UHT milk for ages, I have to have skimmed milk and the stuff you get in a bottle is revolting, using UHT I can buy a months supply..... we do not have milk in either coffee or tea just on cereal, custard or white sauce.

I have found that a market town close to us has a Farmers market on a Friday, so I will be looking at that to see what the meat is like, otherwise I am afraid it will be the supermarket for me, be it reluctantly..............

N9eav

A few years ago I drove through Evesham in late summer/Autumn. I took the country roads and almosy on every turn there was a stall or farm shop. I bought some of the best apples, plums and other fruits I have ever tasted. I have never found anything as good in the shops anywhere ever. Fantastic produce....

raeble

Loadsabob wrote:

Yeah, which is exactly why organic farmers go into business, to produce cattle feed! :rolleyes: Poor guy, I could really feel his frustration at throwing away perfectly good potatoes.

I could too but I didn't see why he didn't appear, make any attempt to sell it to the local community. I remember one year someone came round selling potatoes at the back of a van - fiver for a huge bag. Kept a family of four going for months, nicest potatoes I've ever tasted.

BWZN93

lipidicman wrote:

Those spanish peppers were between colours - that happens in my fridge sometimes.

I meant that the colour of the red was amazing, deep and really intense, the sainsburys red pepper in my fridge looks watery and pale in comparison!! They just looked like they had a better flavour by far!

Jo xx

Loadsabob

raeble wrote:

I could too but I didn't see why he didn't appear, make any attempt to sell it to the local community. I remember one year someone came round selling potatoes at the back of a van - fiver for a huge bag. Kept a family of four going for months, nicest potatoes I've ever tasted.

I think they're forbidden by the supermarkets from selling elsewhere if they're tied into a contract. I wonder how many secretly go off to farmer's markets with the surplus, but I don't know whether that's worth the risk for them?...

trace-j

My partner grew up on a farm comes from a large farming family, were as I'm what they call a townie (but they love me for who I am)! At recent gathering they were talking about how their various farms/businesses is bad and for the amount of work you put in you don't get a decent return.

If you want to see how much profit is made on meat, go to your next livestock local market (taking a pair of wellies and waterproof trousers as you'll need to disinfect) and see how much heards and various of animals reared for slaughter sell for. I've seen a lambs being sold for £44 a pen to a slaughterhouse. Now although there are overheads associated with the running slaughterhouses how much do you pay at the supermarket for a lamb joint? Money's going somewhere and it's definately not the farmer who reared the animals.

competitionscafe

I went to the butchers the other day and I bet him 50 quid that he couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, "No, the steaks are too high."

gritts

I heard on Radio Five this morning a topic about Supermarket Special Offers. I think Which mag has done some investigation and found that some supermarket special offers weren't all that they were cracked up to be.

One of the examples given was in Asda. A big 'Special offer' sign had been stuck up stating 3 for 99p of a particular drink.

Special offer cost per drink is thus 33p if 3 were purchased. Actual cost of 1 drink 34p - a huge saving of 3p.

The message seemed to be that some special offers are not that 'special' at all but it allows the big supermarkets the chance to stick up huge signs letting us now they are lowering prices and then tricking us to buy more.

The were other examples given.

Check those 'special' offers!

lipidicman

I am sorry, but if you couldn't spot that the above example wasn't that special then you really shouldn't be out shopping on your own!

1sttimer_2

All these posts made interesting reading. I almost feel I'd watched the programmes (which I didn't) but I feel we should not feel guilty about how we've shopped in the past. Over the years we have been told various 'facts' about what is best for us and we have all gone down the road of believing that those people knew what they were telling us.

Because we have much more information available to us and are now more informed about how the supermarkets work, we have a choice of changing the way we shop if we are able to. Unfortunately the majority of folk just cannot afford to put a lot of the above advice into practice - i.e. buy organic/shop locally.

I feel that I am lucky that being able to be on this site I can read others views and acting according to our/my beliefs. There will be lots of people who are not able to read these views, nor have the ability to discuss them with others so they will just keep on shopping at the supermarkets because they have no other option.