Food is not expensive

Rationed to one small meal a day here and often I skip a day else there wouldn't be enough for the others I also need to feed, I try to do healthy meals, for instance we all fancied salad in this heat but even a small amount of fresh salad vegetables came to more than I have budgeted( left after rent/ct/bills ) for the week so no healthy salad for us!

That's an absolutely ridiculous statement and completely untrue!

You must live in an alternate reality.
Money is obviously not a problem for you.

Yes funny how all the regulators rarely find in favour of the consumer isn't it?

Which is what i said!

But the fact is, all the SM's have hiked prices on the cheaper food stuffs we have shifted too.

Consumer organisations disagree with the CMA.

I voted YABU

We are paying for shoplifters because the police do nothing

Thats not what the CMA found

Whilst you may think they are working in collusion with big food, they explain their logic in the report and in any event the financial numbers are public domain and easy to verify

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/competition-and-profitability-in-the-groceries-sector

They far out strip inflation.

Its a captive market, one puts up the price of chicken, they all do.

Cheaper ranges have soared in price compared to branded stuff - why? the costs of production have risen equally.

But they know we have switched to so called cheaper ranges, so thats where the prices rises go.

Farm incomes have rocketed esp in Dairy and meat production - the idea Farmers are all on the breadline is the NFU/Clarksons narrative but is not correct

The really issue is that food quality has dived and our supermarket shelves are often half empty, supermarkets continue to make huge profits.

Coming back from being in France Germany recently, highlighted the differences.

There should really be a truly independent investigation into price fixing across the retail food supply, not one conducted by the regulator which works hand in hand with the supermarkets.

As do all regulators tbh.

I’m not sure what your point is ?

Profit and profit margin are different things

On £5 of food they make 10-15p of profit

Describing profits as “record” is meaningless . You expect profits to go up each year with inflation and so each year a new record is set.

Thank you @Emma8888

Apologies, thought I had said. Canada. I think everything is technically weighed and sold in grams / kg but the bag of new potatoes is 454g so I just say 1lb! Loose veg is labeled in both per lb and per kg but the per lb price is always the largest number on the label (because it seems less!) It’s a confusing dual metric / imperial system - it’s 32 degrees C today but I cooked my supper at 350F. We buy litres of petrol but measure cooking oil in cups / spoons not ml.

And yet one of our biggest health issues is obesity and childhood obesity. I remember going to a cover a shareholders’ meeting in London in the late 1980s of one of the big food manufacturers for the newspaper I was writing for. They had just launched the first ready meals. I was given some to take away. I was v young. When I got home, I excitedly showed my husband- a farmer’s son and a doctor - and he said “no. We’re not eating these”. In retrospect I’m so grateful to him. We have always cooked from scratched. I’m amazed food manufacturers get away with the food they produce.

Food prices in Spain are far cheaper than the UK.

YANBU. In this country, it’s possible to live very frugally in terms of food budget if you shop at discount stores, are happy to eat yellow stickered food and meal plan around BOGOFs and other deals.

Of course if you want organic beef from your farm shop butcher and high end/luxury groceries…

Then you can't say food is not expensive really.

Agree with the OP 100%. I’m shocked whenever I step into a supermarket in Europe or the US. Even in Taiwan, where I live half the year, food prices are higher. The UK has cheaper food than any of its neighbours. Just now in Italy and feeling at the price of a loaf.

Not really, both metric and Imperial are used.

200g ball of mozzarella $10.99

Then later

1lb bag of new potatoes $4.99

You can rule most of those out based on the use of pounds as a measurement of weight.

You do understand that last year food didn't cost as much as it did this year? And that additional amount isn't going directly to the suppliers?

You do know that farmers most years break even and don't make a profit? And yet supermarkets do?

If you don't it's expensive, do you not think it's due to a lack of knowledge about current affairs?

That's not helpful when you don't say what country you live in. Are those dollars US? Australian? Canadian? NZ? Hong Kong?

This.

I bought some loose ginger today from Sainsbury’s , about the length of my hand (two bits but roughly added up to length of my hand) and it was £1.20 ish 🤷‍♀️

YANBU
In the UK, the proportion of income spent on food has significantly decreased over the past six decades, from about 33% in 1957 to around 16% today (ONS stats).
We cannot expect quality food that’s also cheap.

Why are you buying them expensive fruit? These are seasonal- bat shit crazy

I disagree. Food is a lot more expensive. My food shop has probably doubled. 4 years ago I paid £7.95 for a tin of baby milk and now with my son it's £10.50. We spend about £20 a week on fruit though as my children live strawberries, blueberries and yogurts. I like to make lasagna or stew and make it last a few days but the price of mince has gone up a few pounds and so has things like cheese. I've also noticed a lot of things has less in. Cat food has gone from 100g to 80g.