The price of food

[Poetrypatty]

It has just gone up so much hasn't it. My weekly shop is approaching double what it used to be. It must have reached the point where it's causing real hardship and making people have to change what they eat. I know some can't afford food at all (and I do donate to food banks) but even for those who can, it's got harder. There must be so many now under a significant amount of pressure with fuel going up and Christmas coming

But real prices (ie as a proportion of income) are lower today than say 30 years ago really for food?

Things have gone up a bit, tho I limit the amount of meat and fish I eat. 3 times a week max).
Veg, some fruit and pulses relatively cheap, as is rice and pasta, I eat semi veggie cheaper and healthier.
I’m more worried about energy prices, making more use of my slow cooker, less washing ( only cat and i) and oven on less.

But real prices (ie as a proportion of income) are lower today than say 30 years ago

really for food?

Yes, people used to spend far more on food as a proportion of income

I've been alarmed by the price hikes too. Back to basics for me! I'll be trawling my WW2 rations cookery book, as well as browsing more up to date budget recipes online.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers yes. This is from 2019 but the figures will be broadly the same - food hasn’t tripled since then. Chicken in particular is a lot cheaper than in the past.
www.which.co.uk/news/2019/11/heres-how-our-food-prices-compare-to-30-years-ago-and-you-might-be-surprised/

It’s not fair really to discuss percentage of income on food being far better when percentage of income for housing is so much worse. It feeds into this idea that we are SO much better off now d see I shouldn’t complain when prices are leaping so much that some people will be making a decision as to whether they heat the house or feed the kids this winter.

We've just had a Tesco delivery this evening. We book one every 10-14 days and add things until we get to around £100, then know that's how much we normally buy to last us until the next one.
When it turned up there was about half what we'd normally get. I thought the driver had forgot some!

On the other hand I've just started collecting surplus food from Tesco via Olio (the food waste app). I've done three collections so far and have been inundated with salad, tiger loaves, sourdough bread, croissants and doughnuts. Hardly any of it gets requested on the app so I've thrown loads away. I thoroughly recommend signing up to get free food!

I've checked through some old Ocado orders - here's a few items from an old shopping order. Can you guess the year?

Fridge
2 2 Free Range Chicken Breast Fillets Waitrose £7.34
1 Baby Corn Waitrose £1.30
1 Baby Courgettes Waitrose £1.64
1 Baby Pak Choi Waitrose £1.64
2 Baby Sugar Snap Peas Waitrose £2.95
1 Baby Topped Carrots Waitrose £1.47
1 Free Range Egg Noodles Waitrose £1.00
1 Ocado Baby Chestnut Mushrooms £1.29

@Namechangenumber1

I work in a chip shop in a very deprived area (around 60-70% on UC with multiple kids) and was chatting to a group of customers who told me that it's now cheaper for them to feed their families entirely on chippy food rather than go shopping. Poor kids, it'll be affecting so many of them.

That's rubbish. A large baking potatoe is 15 p in Aldi. Bag of carrots and parsnips etc around 40 p. No excuse to feed your kids crap. Eggs pasta baked beans are all good and very cheap

Well, food used to be 25% of a person's outgoings maybe 60 years ago (so I've heard), but now it's actually a lot cheaper. Still stings though that all prices going up and my wage isn't!

We shop at aldi ours has gone up 50-80% I’d say

I’ve been behind people in the Chipie and the kids get a bag of chips between them after school and the adults get the meal with fish or pie.

Veg and meat is cheaper than ever, and aldi/lidl have definitely caused other supermarkets to lower prices on some lines. I haven't noticed that much of a change, but absolutely acknowledge they have. It isn't cheaper to buy a hot meal from a chip shop though.

@Totalwasteofpaper

We shop at aldi ours has gone up 50-80% I’d say

80%?!

It’s not fair really to discuss percentage of income on food being far better when percentage of income for housing is so much worse

I was thinking the same when I read that. Rents weren't like now. And also you could count on wages going up after a few years and things like sick pay.

That's rubbish. A large baking potatoe is 15 p in Aldi. Bag of carrots and parsnips etc around 40 p. No excuse to feed your kids crap. Eggs pasta baked beans are all good and very cheap

Posts like this sound judgemental. People don't necessarily have the time, if they are working and taking care of kids. Nor do they want jacket potato day in day out. It's very hard over the course of weeks and months. I can totally see why they get their kids chips, probably shared out as pp said.

@Catfog
A bit difficult to say exactly as depending on the week and what we buy the weekly shop varies.
But it was generally around £50-60 per week for 2 last year and now we spend about £85-100 per week.

Last weeks was 115 but we did buy some xmas bits and a bottle of wine.

@FreeBritnee

It’s not fair really to discuss percentage of income on food being far better when percentage of income for housing is so much worse. It feeds into this idea that we are SO much better off now d see I shouldn’t complain when prices are leaping so much that some people will be making a decision as to whether they heat the house or feed the kids this winter.

Yes, it's true that housing costs a lot more now. And it's not right that there are people who can't afford the essentials. But overall we are better off than a few decades ago. Even re heating - most people have central heating and double glazing now, for example, and better insulation.

Depends where you are for the chip shop prices. Our local chippie which is a really good award winning one does cod and chips for £7.40 and if you add bread and butter it would easily feed two adults with leftover chips. The lunchtime specials are massive too. Three cod bites and chips and mushy peas for £2.80.

By the time I paid for frying oil, fish, gas to cook on then no I couldn't do it cheaper.

Do you really think that the person who said it is cheaper to buy from the chippy is buying fish and chips for each person! You clearly haven’t got a clue! It will be a large bag of chips to share with maybe a few jumbo sausages which will be cheaper than cooking, seriously for those that are saying it’s cheaper to have Iceland/Asda fish and chips haven’t got a clue.
And I totally agree my food bull is probably £20/30 a week more than it was a year or so ago.

@cloudtree

I work in a chip shop in a very deprived area (around 60-70% on UC with multiple kids) and was chatting to a group of customers who told me that it's now cheaper for them to feed their families entirely on chippy food rather than go shopping.

Given that you work in the chippy though you’ll know that that simply isn’t true. How much would it cost to get fish and chips for four people? Way more than the cost of a meal cooked at home. I don’t disagree that food prices have gone up but this sort of thing just isn’t true.

Pretty sure they aren't buying fish. Sausage is cheap and filling.

My shopping has gone up 30-50% per week. I had to use the good bank last month as all my bills have gone up (electric/gas etc).
It's awful

Food*

I think it depends what you buy. The frozen diced onions that I used to pay £1 for are now 79p (no waste and quicker to cook) but the cheapo mushy peas have gone up quite a bit.

I've been buying nuts for Christmas and wincing at the price. Grapes don't seem to have been affected.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Yes it’s extremely expensive but tbh everyone acts like this is a new thing. The price of food has been creeping up and up beyond reasonable amounts for decades.

It really hasn't. It's the complete reverse. The proportion of income spent on food has dropped considerably for decades. The proportion of income spent on other stuff - appliances, internet, home furnishings, toiletries etc has increased significantly, and now we have a very different idea of 'essentials'.

@Yesthatscorrect

Depends where you are for the chip shop prices. Our local chippie which is a really good award winning one does cod and chips for £7.40 and if you add bread and butter it would easily feed two adults with leftover chips. The lunchtime specials are massive too. Three cod bites and chips and mushy peas for £2.80.

By the time I paid for frying oil, fish, gas to cook on then no I couldn't do it cheaper.

Flipping hell! That's so cheap.

Totally not the point of the thread, but we were without car recently, and I really fancied fish and chips and we looked on deliveroo.

First place we looked, it was £13.50 for haddock, plus £3.50 for chips, so £17 for one standard portion of haddock and chips. And that's before the service and delivery charges. And standard portions here feed one (perhaps with a few surplus chips, but not enough to share one meal between 2)

We looked at a couple of other places thinking that must be an anomoly, but the cheapest we could find for one standard (feeds 1) portion of fish and chips was £9 fish plus £3 chips - £12 per person.

We are in the SE just outside London, but still! That's crazy. I was expecting perhaps £8-9 per head for fish and chips tops!

We didn't buy it, and freezer raided instead.

As I said, somewhat away from the point of the thread!

When it comes to weekly supermarket shopping, ours has gone up from approx £80 p week pre pandemic to about £100-120 now.