So, food’s really expensive now – according to the Food Foundation.
From a PR email:
with vegetables and fresh food now too expensive and frozen food being the only affordable option.
Jesus, they’re against Bird’s Eye now. But OK, food’s expensive. So, what should we do about this?
Encourage retailers to pay the Real Living Wage, making it easier for people to afford the food they need
The solution is to increase the costs of food retailers.
These people are fucking insane, aren’t they?
I have asked them whether they actually mean this – if they reply I’ll let you know
Must admit I don’t have any problems with dumping frozen vegs into my Rubbish Bin Stew.
But I can understand why the Food Foundation would hesitate to eat it.
What a ridiculous idea, the Food Foundation have no business offering advice on pay. They should advise Iceland and Bird’s-eye to stock cheap frozen family packs of money.
Vegetables too expensive? I’ve just ordered half a kilo of carrots from Ocado for the grand total of 40p – two and a half minutes labour at minimum wage.
There are 963 Lidl stores in the UK and I would imagine all are in less affluent areas.
Every day their £1.50 fruit and veg boxes are available first thing containing enough to keep a family going for a couple of days assuming someone knows how to make soup, stews, or even just how to cook vegetables.
Many other supermarkets sell their “wonky” fruit and veg at significantly lower prices.
Fresh vegetables and fruit out-of-season is more expensive than frozen food: that is why frozen food is a mass-market product. But in-season, or easily-stored, food is cheaper than frozen: Noel C illustrates with carrots at 40p/kilo including delivery costs.
The Food Foundation complains about obesity among those “in food poverty”: the solution is not to increase retailers’ costs but to incentivise that group to buy and cook sensibly and to take enough exercise.
Their campaigns to simultaneously spread the doctrine of “five-a-day” based on an advertising slogan for Californian farmers (possibly the worst wasters of water on our planet) and reduce meat consumption by 30% to “save the planet” suggest to me that they either do not know what they are talking about or do not care.
None of these campaign lobbyist groups want to actually fix the problems they claim to be highlighting.
If their particular problem ever gets solved, then all those Tristrams and Arabellas are going to lose their nice cushy numbers on inflated salaries in air-conditioned offices in central London, and might even have to go and work for a living.
“all are in less affluent areas”
I know of at least one exception. The local Waitrose is within 10 mins walking distance of the lidl. I was outside lidl in January and someone asked me (in French actually Anglench- bizarre i know) where Waitrose was. They proffered their phone. I duly punched the search into google maps and after expressing gallic gratitude trooped off with a couple of kiddiwinks in tow. I would say one shop is the east of town and t’other’s in the west but its not that big a town.
My personal theory on Lidl is that as soon as they twigged that stocking a limited number of must have branded items (e.g. Marmite) then their potential clientele increased massively.
vegetables and fresh food now too expensive
I had a quick look at the Aldi website. For less than £5 you could buy 2kg potatoes, 1.5kg carrots, 1 cabbage, 1 cauliflower, 1kg onions and 500g of beetroot, all at full price. Or you could buy their ‘super 6’ fruit & veg which includes posh stuff like baby corn and an aubergine for a total of £4.69. That’s quite a lot of variety and quantity for under a tenner.
TBH, every time I go into a UK supermarket I am surprised at how cheap everything is. And generally good quality too.
“with vegetables and fresh food now too expensive”
And they wonder why the public’s trust in “experts” is waning.
No doubt artichokes, baby romaine lettuce, passion fruit, avocado’s and goija berries, preferably from a fair-trade eco-friendly bio-source are expensive.
It’s amazing, though, how little food costs and how you can “travel the world” with what’s on offer or on special on even a limited budget.
If you can actually cook, of course. And have a decent fridge/freezer.
@BoganBoy, curiousity demands the ingredients and basic preparation for your Rubbish Bin Stew…
@John: I recommend Morrison’s “wonky pears”.
Since you’re curious Grikath, I just dump in about 4 trays of minced beef, two of pork, 6 packets of frozen vegs, a potato and an onion.
Cook for an hour or so until it’s horridly mushy, then let it cool off and I put the big and the small stockpot full into the fridge. A bowl a day with a slice of bread (torn up), a slice of cheese and a slice of tomato.
Lasts me several weeks.
I’d eat that (although i’d treble up on the onion).
We all know what the answer will be: “[supermarket x] made [y billions] in profit last year. Instead of paying dividends to greedy shareholders to the benefit only of the already wealthy, [supermarket x] should use their heinous profits to pay their staff and their suppliers a decent living wage, and drop prices for hard-pressed family shoppers.”
It’ll be there or thereabouts.
DK
@DK: I suppose recommending people learn to cook – and improvise on the hoof – with whatever is available in the yellow sticker range is too much to hope for?
Or just freeze stuff if you don’t want to eat it today. That shelf is why my freezer’s full of raw king prawns, fish, meat and smoked salmon!
Please do let us know how they respond. It might be amusing. I keep coming across variations of this: simultaneously complaining about cheap foreign labour and high prices. People are willing to do something useful for not much in return and you want to stop them? Very odd.
If people feel poor it’s because of shortages of accommodation and fuel. Things the state takes a particular interest in, of course.