£31 for two bags of fudge?! 😲

[Wisteriabloom]

I was at a seaside festival with dd yesterday, and looked round the food stalls before we left. There was a pick & mix fudge stall, you fill your own bags and get them weighed.

I picked a small selection for dd & I for the journey home, and a slightly bigger one for my parents, as we're seeing them tonight.

Lovely fudge - salted caramel, candyfloss, oreo, every flavour you could imagine, but I couldn't believe it when asked for £31!! Paid it, wasn't allowed to put any back, so we'll make it last! 😋

Where was this ? Broadstairs maybe ..?

@BettyBakesBuns

My friend was on holiday in Turkey. They went to a local shop and bought some loose Turkish delight by weight, then my friend spotted the spices and herbs and bought some saffron and other spices. She thought the total would be around £20 - it cost her over £80! She laughs about it now.

I am on the other thread about overpaying. I had a rather heated argument with a very big and imposing Turkish man over the outrageous price for some loose tea. Quite a scene, it was.

Beware Turkish spice/tea shops. Really.

@132orbust

To all the people saying just leave it and the shop will put it back - no they cannot do that if its a mix. What if there is a piece of fudge with nuts in there? or some of the lives are with chilli flakes? A shop/stall cannot risk cross contamination like that. As a student I worked in a sweet centre and this was before there was as much awareness of anaphylaxis and we would never put things back so it had to be binned. You can just ask amounts as you go along - the cost a business money like this is terrible.

It's so expensive in the first place but I've never put it back myself

I remember a thread about this shop. I think it came to £41 for the bag IIRC

And the rest...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3667468-99-on-sweets

@132orbust
Yes, I understood that. My point was that it's not the customer's problem, the business has chosen that model as presumably it makes more money, so they it's up to them to absorb the costs if a customer changes their mind.

While I agree it’s a rip off I don’t think it’s a con.
The price was displayed. If the bag was very heavy or the price was hidden then it would be a con.
It’s like the pick and mix at the cinema, it’s always twice the price of the exact same stuff at Wilko.

If they were displaying the price in £ per lb only then that is illegal.

If the prices aren't clear then you ask, don't just dive in and assume.

Having made the assumption, your options are to take it or leave it.

It's not hard.

Don't forget it won't just be the costs of the ingredients you're paying for but also their wages, transport to and from the event, packaging, pitch fees, the equipment to make the fudge.

And yep, there will be some rip-off merchants as there are in all walks of life.

However I assure you the stalls aren't being manned by secret millionaires out to add your child's pocket money to their hoard. Stall owners as a rule aren't rolling in it and most people making these sorts of things tend not to have vast profits.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3667468-99-on-sweets

Bit of a theme emerging?!

@DishingOutDone

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3667468-99-on-sweets

Bit of a theme emerging?!

You mean like the fact that's at least the third time that link has been posted in this thread?

I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole about the Dubrovnik pirate themed sweet shop of doom. This made me laugh. From Trip Advisor:

"As I walked through the door I could feel my timbers starting to shiver and my derriere start to squeek like the rusted hinges of a treasure chest hauled from the dark depths of Davy Jones Locker. My body was of course correcly anticipating of the jolly rodgering I was about to receive at the hands of these villainous pirates. As we pick and mixed our way through the store not even I could quite predict the plundering my wallet would take when we arrived at the counter. On leaving the ambush I was left with a bag printed with Captain Candy's toothy grin smiling back at me, seemingly mocking me for the pieces of eight he had just lifted from my person.

AVOID AVOID AVOID"

I had this experience in a pick n mix in Dubrovnik. It was a pirate themed shop and I remember thinking it was a fairly accurate description!

Why does this sound really familiar to me? Did you post about this shop before?

@Zhampagne

Ha, this reminds me of the time I went into a (very lovely) fudge shop in a touristy town with a friend who is a jeweller. She remarked that gram for gram the fudge was quite a bit more expensive than the market value of gold on that day.

I saw this friend today and checked my recollection; it was silver, not gold. Still…

Ouch. I paid £5 ffor grandad fudge at Hastings last month

Basically a pic of a grandad in a deckchair

I'm not sure if I said this at the time but I'm happy to warn everyone again about the Lindt shop at the O2.

At the 02 they opened an outlet shopping centre just before Covid - I was there in the first week of them opening - might even have been the first day.

Everything was REALLY cheap - huge boxes of Lindt truffles 2 for £7.50 with these big dispensers round the wall

You can see where I'm going with this

There were no prices on the wall dispensers so I picked a couple of flavours I liked and asked for 250grams of that - about 20 chocs I think

• she said it was about £22 I think

I looked aghast and said what about all the others here - there were literally dozens of prices on all the other boxes - all literally an eight of the price

And she shrugged and said "I've mixed them now you have to buy them" - they're wrapped chocolates - blue ones and red ones

I laughed a lot, glared at her and said no way I'm buying them

Boss comes over and says quietly (her fucking mistake) - 'well obviously if you can't afford them'

Me (VERY loudly) "of course I can bloody afford £22 for chocolates I'm just not going to pay when you've not advertised the prices on them and you've put dozens of prices on every other thing in this bloody shop"

She realises her mistake because I'm being VERY loud and the 3 other people in the shop are now actively listening

So I turn round and tell the other customers not to buy the ones on the wall as there's no advertised prices and they're just banking on people being too embarrassed to not pay.

Boss goes purple and turns to shop assistant and says "why haven't you put prices out on the wall displays"

Shop assistant turns to her and without thinking says "but you said not to !!!"

Boss then says very smarmily "thank you for bringing that to our attention but I'm afraid I'm going to ask you to leave and never come back to this shop"

So I go out the shop and because the whole floor had just opened there was only a few people about but I loudly told ALL of them to be very careful in the Lindt store as the wall displays deliberately don't have prices on them.

Boss looks INFURIATED and glowers inside.

I think I may still be barred

So big warning again THE LINDT STORE AT THE O2 HAS A RIP OFF CUSTOMERS POLICY

@browneyes77

Blimey!

I remember holidaying in Cornwall and me and my DP visited Rick Steins bakery in Padstow.

I eyed up the most delicious looking meringue. We had one each they looked so lush. They were £6 each! For a meringue!

And I thought that was expensive. I’d have fainted at £31 for fudge!

Reading some of these posts, you got a bargain OP!

I saw some fudge in Valvona and Corolla a few years back, a now ridiculously over-priced, one suspects more for Observer-reading tourists than anyone else, in Edinburgh. Really bonkersly expensive. I remarked on it, who wouldn't?, and was rather huffily told 'it's hand-made'. Yeah, with sugar and cream. The price of black truffles. Someone pays these prices I guess.

Yikes that's steep. I hope you enjoyed every last piece. And if you ever fancy it again just remember it's super easy to make and turns out delicious.

Lauriefairycake, I really like your story.

Reminds me of the strawberry and cherry sellers SS you drive down the A303 to Devon/Cornwall….lots of signs about lovely British strawberries/cherries and 50p on sign…….but when you pick up a tiny punnet, it’s about £7. 50p relates to either an individual strawberry or the tiniest weight….but they don’t say that in the sign and just hope people are too embarrassed to pay.

I love fudge and especially Roly’s fudge. I know it’s expensive so now I only buy by weight if I can see the price and they weigh it for you and I can say something g like ‘I’d like £3’s worth please’ or get a pre-packaged and priced bag. That £3’s worth is usually about 4 bits, but at least it’s under my price control. Oh and RoLys do cones of fudge crumbs for either 50p or £1 which are the sweepings of crumbs from when they made it…..absolutely delicious sprinkled on a puddling or just tipped into my greedy gob.

£31! I think I’d have walked away or at least I hope so, but the shock and embarrassment can make you pay up.

This thread will give me more courage if I find myself in this situation. I think a good answer would be quite simply ‘Oh I’m so sorry, I only have cash and nowhere near that amount, I’ll have to leave it’.

I had this a few days ago at a fair, filled a normal size bag of pick n mix that is about £4 at wilco, it was £18! Thankfully they let you chuck what you don't want into a bucket.

A quick Google shopping search comes up with rather exorbitant prises for fudge. The 1 lbs box at one shop is advertised at £52. Seems you got a good deal and I am in the wrong job and need to learn how to make fudge

@KupoNutCoffee

Fudge works out stupidly expensive at places like this.

Fudge is quite dense so you always underestimate how much its going to weigh. A couple of chunks, of the homemade, packed with chocolate oreo etc., could be 100g on its own. How much was it per 100g. Its always more than regular pick and mix

Not only this, but the chunks are cut bigger than you realise.

I can make my own now, from a couple of recipes.

Farmers markets and fetes etc always seem to have an inflated price attached to some of their things. I realise they are trying to make a living - but not at my expense. They may do well in London where people don't know the value of things but in the sticks it seems more like a ripoff. I was bamboozled into paying £5 for a small packet of mint tea recently. More fool me for not being able to put it back on the stall with a well chosen phrase or two.

@LaurieFairyCake

I'm not sure if I said this at the time but I'm happy to warn everyone again about the Lindt shop at the O2.

At the 02 they opened an outlet shopping centre just before Covid - I was there in the first week of them opening - might even have been the first day.

Everything was REALLY cheap - huge boxes of Lindt truffles 2 for £7.50 with these big dispensers round the wall

You can see where I'm going with this

There were no prices on the wall dispensers so I picked a couple of flavours I liked and asked for 250grams of that - about 20 chocs I think

• she said it was about £22 I think

I looked aghast and said what about all the others here - there were literally dozens of prices on all the other boxes - all literally an eight of the price

And she shrugged and said "I've mixed them now you have to buy them" - they're wrapped chocolates - blue ones and red ones

I laughed a lot, glared at her and said no way I'm buying them

Boss comes over and says quietly (her fucking mistake) - 'well obviously if you can't afford them'

Me (VERY loudly) "of course I can bloody afford £22 for chocolates I'm just not going to pay when you've not advertised the prices on them and you've put dozens of prices on every other thing in this bloody shop"

She realises her mistake because I'm being VERY loud and the 3 other people in the shop are now actively listening

So I turn round and tell the other customers not to buy the ones on the wall as there's no advertised prices and they're just banking on people being too embarrassed to not pay.

Boss goes purple and turns to shop assistant and says "why haven't you put prices out on the wall displays"

Shop assistant turns to her and without thinking says "but you said not to !!!"

Boss then says very smarmily "thank you for bringing that to our attention but I'm afraid I'm going to ask you to leave and never come back to this shop"

So I go out the shop and because the whole floor had just opened there was only a few people about but I loudly told ALL of them to be very careful in the Lindt store as the wall displays deliberately don't have prices on them.

Boss looks INFURIATED and glowers inside.

I think I may still be barred

So big warning again THE LINDT STORE AT THE O2 HAS A RIP OFF CUSTOMERS POLICY

She barred you from the shop for challenging the fact they had deliberately mislead customers with lack of pricing?

The fact she automatically tried to put the blame on her staff member, rather than taking accountability, shows what a poor manager she is.

I’d be so pissed about her entire attitude, I would’ve put my petty ass hat on and written a formal complaint about her to their head office. But that’s because I like to have the last word

I'm surprised people are defending this £30 fudge as if it's anything other than trying to take advantage.

There's a reason the fudge was help-yourself, rather than priced by the slice, or pre-packed in small bags at £15 each - which is not the usual price for fudge no matter how lovingly handmade or how many oreos are on the top.

The fudge must be made of gold