£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! 😋

@Sniv

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.

If you pick up £30 worth of fudge then don't be surprised if you're charged £30 for it. Everyone knows fudge is heavy so buying by weight is expensive.

If you think it's too expensive (which is not unreasonable, buying it isn't compulsory) then don't pick it up.

If you can't see the prices or you're not sure then ask first, don't assume the cost.

If someone has priced too high then their business model is unviable and they won't sell anything.

First thing I did when I saw this thread was get a big chunk of Roly's fudge from a recent trip to the seaside. I find that a hit eye watering ly expensive but it sounds half or 1/3 of the price of yours. Oh and it's heavenly!

Hope it tastes really good, OP

That’s ridiculous. I’d have walked away.

Your story has been picked up by the tabloids by the way, www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/mum-fumes-after-being-charged-24752697

You need to go fudge yourself with this recipe.

I've used this recipe for Christmas presents before and it's perfect.

Titli has a great sense of humour and this fits the bill for you.

They cannot refuse you putting any back, I would have put the smaller bag back and split the bag into two for yourselves and your family

If you pick up £30 worth of fudge then don't be surprised if you're charged £30 for it.

If a customer has no way of knowing that they've picked up £30 of fudge because fudge isn't usually £15 a bag, then don't be surprised that they don't expect to pay that

Everyone knows fudge is heavy so buying by weight is expensive.

Er...what? Would bowling ball be more heavy if they we're priced by weight? No, because the price of a bowling ball is the price of a bowling ball. Boxes of fudge are sold by weight just as much as pic-n-mix, that's why there's always the same amount in each box. There's no reason it should be more expensive.

If you think it's too expensive (which is not unreasonable, buying it isn't compulsory) then don't pick it up.

That's the point. Most people don't know it's too expensive, because they cannot accurately estimate the weight of items by sight or feel.

If you can't see the prices or you're not sure then ask first, don't assume the cost.

OP did know the price...by weight. However, she had no way of knowing the weight of her purchase until she was in a position where she could be bullied into forking out.

If someone has priced too high then their business model is unviable and they won't sell anything.

This selling model is done at fairs and tourist traps; it doesn't count on repeat sales. If a customer feels ripped off and doesn't come back, it doesn't matter, there's a fresh sucker coming along every five minutes.

There was a 'posh' olive stall in my local shopping centre a couple of years ago.My friend bought a small tub of green olives with garlic. Apparently,this tub was 150 grams in weight and cost £6.50! I was gobsmacked. I pay 59 pence for a 180 gram jar in the nearby Asda!

I remember a fella once prepping tinned smart price potatoes, onions and sliced mushrooms all fried up in veg oil and selling it as some European concoction for £3.50 for a tiny tub of it. Must have cost him about 20 quid to make the entire pan of it.

I never buy at these food markets or stalls. We used (pre Covid) to have a monthly farmer's market and a boule type loaf of sourdough was 3.75 and local honey, 3.90.
I have friends who keep bees and they sell at their gate (or deliver to local pub for pick up) for 2.80.
I have made my own fudge and flavoured it with rum and raisins (soaked in rum) also clotted cream fudge and whisky fudge. Bought cellophane triangle shaped bags and gold wired ties on Amazon and gift to friends. Cheap to make. I shop for fruit n veg from a guy in nearby town who sets up stall TFS straight from Covent Garden. Cheap and totally fresh.
I avoid rip off farm shops and 'artisan' products.
Hope you all enjoyed the fudge although Oreo and candyfloss fudge wouldn't appeal to me. Too sickly.

@omgthepain

Fudge is so cheap and easy to make we make it at home when we bake and do all sorts of flavours I use a lot of carnation milk recipes they work well and it costs about £2 to make tonnes of the stuff

https://www.carnation.co.uk/search?query=fudge&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIObQjjCr8gIVhevtCh3QbAWjEAAYASAAEgL1xDDBwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Households up and down the land will be perfecting their perfect fudge recipes now. Including me!!

OP did know the price...by weight. However, she had no way of knowing the weight of her purchase until she was in a position where she could be bullied into forking out

I'm not sure if the stall in this case displayed the price per 100g, but surely people know that isn't very much (a standard supermarket bag is around 200 g for a start) so 100 g of loose fudge could be as little as 3 pieces if they are large, so it doesn't take a genius to work out if you buy a lot of it, it will be expensive. It sounds like the OP probably bought a kilo of fudge, based on something like fudge kitchen prices.

A bit like the much linked £99 Croatian pick n mix. In both cases, especially the latter, the purchases must have been abnormally large.

Try www.wickedfudge.co.uk real handmade butter fudge, not the mass produced pick and mix fudge. Far better value for money.

Beware the greed of people, coming home from România , by bus , very cheap but hard on my bum after 2 days during the Iceland volcano episode & we stopped for a snack & fag break& luckily my girl friend had prepared food & cool drinks for the journey, I like my strong cafè so I wandered to this artesan stall, spoke french so taking the piss I said you don't have many customers, No the lady said , damned right says I € 7 for 20cc, went back & had a quaff of my slightly warm diet Pepsi.We get a very good coffee here no more than €1.20 & HUGE brandy for € 1.20. The most I've paid was@ € 3.00 for Jamaica Blue Mountain , now that's the best you'll get, tried to www buy some recently € 58 for 250 gm.I also have this habit of the Pope, first stop in Spain kiss the tarmac & others do as well.

How much did you buy cant get into see all. Was it a five pound bag 🤣 personally I hate the stuff

Er...what? Would bowling ball be more heavy if they we're priced by weight? No, because the price of a bowling ball is the price of a bowling ball. Boxes of fudge are sold by weight just as much as pic-n-mix, that's why there's always the same amount in each box. There's no reason it should be more expensive.

What are you not understanding?
Let’s say a stall sells sweets for £5 per 100g.
Fudge is heavy so a bag full of fudge will be heavier than a bag full of marshmallows.
The fudge will cost more for a full bag because it is heavier.

Boxes of fudge are not sold by weight, they are sold by the box. Each box weighs the same. One box is £x. Bags of pick and mix are sold by weight because the weight varies. 100g is £x.

If you went to a shop where you buy sweets by the quarter then your quarter contained more marshmallows than it would do fudge.

I’ve been stung by one of these in a popular tourist area, thankfully I asked roughly how many pieces and they said 3, so I spent £12 on 3 pieces each for my kids (and it wasn’t even that nice)

My lesson from this is to avoid these market type artisan stalls or to always ask them to measure me a price-worth of the product. I might not get very much then, but at least my spend will be controlled.

I'm not afraid to ask questions before buying, so I would ask about price if it wasn't labelled and when things are by weight, I know it's very hard to judge.

PP was right, it's a rip-off business model that works because it doesn't depend on repeat custom but an ever changing customer base, who are often unsuspecting. Saying 'Now you've put it in the bag you just buy it' relies on people being caught unawares by price, being embarrassed and unsure of their right to leave the product.

Hopefully this thread shows a chunk of people that they can walk away. No excuse is needed beyond 'I do t want to pay that' but 'I only have cash and nowhere near that amount' can help those who feel embarrassed to comment on price.

@YesIDoLoveCrisps

The same thing happened to us once OP. My husband was traumatised. When we were going to sleep that night he kept muttering ‘forty-fucking-two’ pounds over and over. Yes we had spent £42 on pick and mix. It was for 3 children but even so it’s so much money!

Ahh, that's terrible. Your DH's night time mutterings though...

That's it.

I'm making fudge.

This thread makes me glad that I don't like fudge/olives/Turkish delight etc.
As a rule I only buy things that have the actual price after being stung at deli counter for cheese.

I bought loose almonds, got carried away, £12 but I did enjoy.

[quote icedcoffees]This is in the Mirror

www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/mum-fumes-after-being-charged-24752697[/quote]
My DH was about to read me a story about a woman at a food stall. I interrupted him and said "Fudge for £31? Already read it on MN."

Some top notch investigative journalism there 🤔

Surely it should be mum fumming...

@BarbaraofSeville

OP did know the price...by weight. However, she had no way of knowing the weight of her purchase until she was in a position where she could be bullied into forking out

I'm not sure if the stall in this case displayed the price per 100g, but surely people know that isn't very much (a standard supermarket bag is around 200 g for a start) so 100 g of loose fudge could be as little as 3 pieces if they are large, so it doesn't take a genius to work out if you buy a lot of it, it will be expensive. It sounds like the OP probably bought a kilo of fudge, based on something like fudge kitchen prices.

A bit like the much linked £99 Croatian pick n mix. In both cases, especially the latter, the purchases must have been abnormally large.

Read the £99 post. The bags really weren't that large