Are you fed up with stealthy increases in food prices?

Nikiya

I shop at various supermarkets, but for logistical reasons, my main one is Sainsburys. I am quite used to their gimmicks: advertising in big signs a few pence reduction or something sold at "TESCO PRICE" while increasing other products by outrageous margins.
Last time I went I discovered their reduced fat croissants had gone from £0.70 to £0.88. The price sign was hidden (as usual) --this time behind a big one which advertised another product as been the same price as Tesco.
Groundnut oil, which had disappeared from the shelves for a while (I was told it had been discontinued) was at £1.08 the 500 ml bottle. That is outrageous. Last time I bought it was March 19 --less than a month ago-- and it costed the usual £0.69. They had already discontinued the 1l bottles (presumably because they can charge less for smaller sizes).
How can they get away with this? That is more than a 30% increase in one case and more than a 50% in the other! Isnt' there any protection for the consumer???

illuminate

they are shops... their SOLE aim is to make as much money as possible for their owners/shareholders.

They can charge what they like for what they like.

However I will ask one question.

I seem to recall fairly recently that Tescos and (I think) Sainsburys were found guilty of price fixing on basic commodity foods. The example I read about was milk.

Price in Sainsburys pre conviction £1.34 for 4 pints. Price post conviction £1.34 for 4 pints.

Just to put this in perspective....... my local corner shop charges 99p for the same item. Can I assume that the fella who runs that, has greater buying power than the big supermarkets ?.

uktim29

Nikiya wrote: »

Isnt' there any protection for the consumer???

Supermarket retail has a less than 5% profit margin. That is complete fact, it doesn't matter how a price may have gone up, they are more than likely overhead increases.

The only reason you'll find milk/bread cheaper in local shops is because they are the only things Supermarkets sell at a decent margin that knocks the overall figure up to around 4 or 5% profit margin.

illuminate wrote: »

Just to put this in perspective....... my local corner shop charges 99p

But then properly put it into perspective and do all your shopping at local corner shops and then wonder why your spending £100 more a month on food than you use to when you did it at a Supermarket.

http://www.bized.co.uk/compfact/ratios/ror12.htm

Company Profit Margin
Marks & Spencer 3.91%
J Sainsbury 3.61%
Safeway 4.14%
Morrisons 5.87%
Tesco 5.72%

What sort of protection are you looking for, the law forcing them to make a loss?

I can't believe how selfish consumers are now. They want laws for this sort of thing. They blame Supermarkets for forcing Farmers out of business but wonder why when they want everything sold at wholesale price to them that Supermarkets are then forced to try and get their stock as cheap as they can.

Nikiya

Well Uktim that is interesting. Then how on earth do they make fortunes?
And I was not talking about bread or milk nor do I have a chance to "compare" with corner shops. I do not have any.
Also what head costs are you talking about? I see they do invest a lot in marketing: designing new packaging, "creating" logos, swaping goods around to "steer" consumers and the like. If that results in such a little margin, why insisting? It MUST cost a lot of money... which is passed on to the price of the product they sell.
Now all that does not work for me and I suspect it neither does for a lot of people..

tinkerbell84

Nikiya wrote: »

Well Uktim that is interesting. Then how on earth do they make fortunes?
And I was not talking about bread or milk nor do I have a chance to "compare" with corner shops. I do not have any.
Also what head costs are you talking about? I see they do invest a lot in marketing: designing new packaging, "creating" logos, swaping goods around to "steer" consumers and the like. If that results in such a little margin, why insisting? It MUST cost a lot of money... which is passed on to the price of the product they sell.
Now all that does not work for me and I suspect it neither does for a lot of people..

:rolleyes:

errrrrrr, staff? electricity? business rates? lighting? costs for getting cheques and credit cards processed? banking costs? costs of buying land and building stores? maintenance? the fleet of vans for online customers?.............

the way they make money is by selling goods, but they have to pay out a lot to enable customers to physically buy them. if their costs go up, they have to increase the amount they charge customers to buy the goods.

Nikiya

Of course I am aware of those head costs! My point is there are a lot of head costs for the sole purpose of selling more or tricking customers.

globalds

http://news.google.co.uk/news?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=food+prices+rising&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

Take your pick from this list ..
If only it was those greedy supermarkets .

uktim29

Nikiya wrote: »

Well Uktim that is interesting. Then how on earth do they make fortunes?

Because the grocery market is very large! They end up selling lots at 5%

Nikiya wrote: »

It MUST cost a lot of money... which is passed on to the price of the product they sell

I think you'll find the things you listed pay for themselves otherwise there would be no point in doing them.

Nikiya wrote: »

Now all that does not work for me

If fact doesn't work for you (I listed a link verifying facts) then your counter arguement isn't going to be worth listening to then is it.

chuckley

ASDA is tha future.

tinkerbell84

chuckley wrote: »

ASDA is tha future.

owned by WALMART - one of the most damaging organisations in the world?

eg http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Misc/misc.consumers/2006-08/msg00546.html

SaraSeahorse

I do tesco online and noticed they have stopped doing 3 litre tesco fruit squash - were buy two for £2.50 (42p a litre) - now their own brand alternative is 1.5 litres buy two for £2.75 (92p a litre) - that is an amazing price rise!

I buy diluting squash for kids pack lunches instead of over priced fruit shoots etc. My children do drink water too before someone comes back and suggests tap water