To be horrified at the price of food

I know people with chickens. They have them as pets and the eggs are a bonus.

Over the last few years they have had to keep them in their coops due to bird flu for months at a time. Luckily as they are pets their coops are a reasonable size unlike the people I knew who kept chickens when I was a child.

Lol at the person who complained fruit and veg is too expensive and is buying fresh raspberries in March.

She said 1980s, not 1950s.

Cucumber is ridiculous now and tiny!

The veg that we find hardest to shift is the unfamiliar - eg celeriac needs a recipe attached for most people to take a punt.

Many unfamiliar veg can be subbed for familiar veg so maybe just let people know what it's similar to? I grate celeriac into bolognese in place of celery.

It works with basil. Definitely not with coriander.

And if you make pesto the basil is buggered anyway unless you've got a whole patch of it in the garden in summer.

My DH just chews the raw stick.... 😂
Also, freezes well for future use

I eat it on porridge. I take any I'm offered! It only needs 10% of its weight in sugar and its so quick to cook down and pop in the fridge.

Very much issue with most supermarket hebrs. So many people think the dying plant is them doing something wrong and give up after 4th when it's just overcrowding.

Also, herbs freeze amazingly. I have numerous bags in freezer and they work great.

The trick with basil is they put far too many plants in the pot. If you split them up in a bigger pot or multiple pots outside then pinch the leaves from the top then they will grow bushy and you will have loads of basil.

Oh British rhubarb is in season. Woo fucking hoo. About the most useless cunting vegetable on the planet. I like it but once I've had a bit of crumble or yogurt I wouldn't want it again for a month at least and I don't even eat desserts normally anyway. And there is always a metric fuckton of the stuff and you can't give it away for love nor money. Rhubarb can seriously fuck off.

YANBU. It really pisses me off as well as people still say things like "food is too cheap" or blame consumers for going to supermarkets. It really isn't fucking cheap, and already millions of people can't afford to eat properly. Farmers aren't being paid enough for the produce and customers are paying too much. Well, someone is creaming it off in the middle! And it isn't consumers' fault.

And last week we had multi packs of peppers. Amusing given this thread. Around 200kg worth, ex-Tesco. Presumably they didn’t sell as many as expected.

Where are you finding ham and custard creams at 20p???

Custard creams are 30p in M&S, so not far off.

I run a kind of food bank which operates as a pantry, so people choose what they want from the options we have available. What we’ve seen for years now is that people do want fresh produce. In retail shops the barrier is financial. The veg that we find hardest to shift is the unfamiliar - eg celeriac needs a recipe attached for most people to take a punt.

It is absolutely a price and mental bandwidth issue ime.

The reality is that retailers have had to pay growers more or face empty shelves, as weather and labours shortages across Europe have meant shortages which have driven up prices. And let to more and more airfreighted imports, also at higher prices, economically and environmentally.

That’s clearly not true, as other posts have shown. Despite the clusterf* of BREXIT fresh fruit / veg is still cheaper in the UK as those of us who live / spend time in France have posted! UK retailers are to blame, with their ruthless efficiency and year-round flat pricing. Because they squeeze growers to the bone they have no choice but to put up proves, or they’d have empty shelves, especially in winter. Come the summer, they’ll take the opportunity to push prices right back down as supply > exceeds demand.

Coming back to peppers, where this started, coincidentally I read in today’s Sunday times that 60% of the cost involved in getting a pepper to the shelf is labour. The minim wage has gone up 20%, so there’s a 12% increase in the cost of a pepper right there, before you consider the impact of anything else.

@NoisySnail No, I admit, I have never been in a Heron Foods shop. Maybe in-store is better.

@NoisySnail I love heron foods. Maybe you have to be ' proper poor' to appreciate.

@Meadowfinch their offers are in store and they have some very cheap ranges. You have never been in the shop so have no idea what you are talking about.
But for the record they are like B and M. Some things are more expensive, some things are very cheap.

I'd never heard of Heron Foods but just checked out the prices and they seem very very expensive.

Battered fish (hake) £10kg, whereas £7kg in Tesco.
£11.50kg for Chicken Chargrills which are just chicken breasts dipped in breadcrumbs & seasoning. £6.20/kg in Tesco.

Lots of ultra processed stuff. Not much there I would eat because I can make healthier, better quality, nicer tasting for probably 30% less cost and in very little time.

I'm a single, full time working mum, shopping on a food budget of £50 a week for 1 adult, 1 endlessly hungry teen boy. I usually spend £10 a week on fresh fruit & veg. Also buy some frozen - spinach, sweetcorn, peas. Tinned kidney beans & tomatoes

We usually manage 25-30 different fruit & veg a week. It really isn't difficult. Just buy seasonal to mix with the basics..

Yes. Elitist attitudes are a plenty on here. It would be funny as an ' expose ' on the average middle class mumsnetter , if it wasn't such bad taste when sensitive topics like food poverty weren't being discussed.

OP the people mostly giving advice on this thread do not have to live on a very tight budget. It shows in their "advice". MN is too full of well of people for this kind of discussion.

Choose different fruit & veg. Buy seasonal. Peppers are imported, need green houses and lots of water.

Swede yesterday in Tesco - 15p. Mashed with black pepper and butter it's lovely.
Six apples for 89p
9 Satsumas for 99p
1kg onions 69p
1kg carrots 80p
Large head of broccoli 89p

British rhubarb is in season. In fact find someone with rhubarb in their garden and they'll probably give you some for free. (It grows a lot when it rains!)

ALDI was selling it as a loss leader in the few days before Easter. They do the same just before Christmas. The rest of the year a bag of carrots is about 80p, a bag of potatoes about £1.15, and onions about a £1.

Aldi was selling carrots, swede, onions and a bag of potatoes for 15 p each yesterday. I grow raspberries, strawberries, cooking apples, rhubarb, sugar snap peas, runner beans, cherry tomatoes and chillies. Also lots of different herbs and various salad leaves. You can grow herbs and salad leaves in a window box and cherry tomatoes in a grow bag.