Food Prices - are some companies profiteering?

[Moonopoly]

Just wondering what your thoughts are. I went in to Co-op near us and the Nescafé (admittedly large) was £8 a jar!
I generally shop in Aldi, Heron Foods or Iceland but occasionally nip in to Sainsburys, Co-op or Morrisons. The former have had small price increases but the later seem to have some crazy leaps in cost!

Supermarkets are quite a distance away and no car.

I rotate supermarket deliveries. Make the most of the new customer offers from Iceland, Morrisons, Waitrose, Ocado, Tesco, Sainsbury, etc. Also no Bother (new customer offer). Also Approved Foods. Get honey checkout voucher thing or pouch.

Order through Quidco cashback (save the cashback for Christmas). Some new customer offers are 10 per cent off.

Be careful of what time you order as some days are more expensive than others.

Try to restrict to 40 pound shop (or whatever is free delivery).

Only order what is at a decent price i.e. choose lowest butter price - one week, look out for lowest price for Nescafe or brand you like.

Example I bulk bought Iceland UHT milk - and Heinz tomato soup from Iceland. Beans from Approved Foods one week as they were cheapest. Pasta likewise.

If you rotate supermarkets you will find that after a month the one you started with will send you a ten or five pound voucher because they are missing your business!.

But if you think an item is too expensive you don't buy it. Instant coffee isn't essential. Plus you said it's a big jar, so what is the cost per 100G and how does that compare?

The number of people who do all their shopping in the Co-op and are never near any cheaper shops and don't get their shopping delivered will be so small that shops won't be able to rely on people like this for 'profiteering' as you claim.

Stuff will just go unsold because the majority won't buy the £8 coffee and get it for less elsewhere.

How do I know what?

i did not say I know anything

i said I “strongly suspect”

why? Because I scour the business news sections and so I know wholesale prices have gone through the roof.

added to which, very bad PR if these supermarkets publish their results showing enormous profits in comparison with previous years

And for missing bits. Local Spar shop. I don't buy their normal ranges but just before closing they have stickered items or half price meat. Goes straight in freezer.

I’m torn on this. On the one hand, there are clearly price rises across the board, businesses have fuel costs, etc, stuff costs more to make. But last year, didn’t supermarkets post their biggest profits ever? At a time when a lot of the “deals” were disappearing for customers and/or becoming less competitive? They are businesses and exist to make a profit but I share your concerns about how much profit they are making at the moment.

Equally, I know there are some items like milk where we’ve probably paid under the odds in the U.K. for a long time.

I’m not just talking about the co-op that was just an example…Nor about the jar of coffee…
Prices are increasing every where and on everything. Im asking are they truly representative of their costs… Are they driving inflation by doing so?

Sorry that was for @BarbaraofSeville

Yes shops and energy companies are profiteering. They pass everything onto the consumer rather than absorb any raising costs themselves.

Things could be made easier.

Totally agree with you OP. With some items it's not just a couple of pence increase but 25p or more. For a weekly shop that translates to several pounds. And it seems to effect everything eg a pack of cakes up by 20p, a pack of pull ups up by 25p, a bottle of soft drink up by30p and on and on!

Probably yes. The answer for people on the ground who ARE in a position to do this, and have neighbours is to form an old-fashioned FOOD COOP.

Suma for example are a worker's cooperative and with several people you can buy in bulk, get wholesale prices and avoid the capitalist bit. I.e. buy a sack of rice and divide it up amongst several households.

This used to be very popular in the seventies but people got so individualistic some couldn't imagine doing the coop thing anymore. It is sensible though.

If you volunteer for Olio - and distribute food/household items you get to keep 10 per cent of the goods I think. So theoretically if you did that you could probably feed yourself for free.

Here is link to buy wholesale from Suma.

You register and do a big shop (minimum spend I think).

With a group of people it can work well. but there is a minimum spend of say I think 400. which not everyone can afford these days.

I thought the co-op was owned by its members - surely that’s the whole point of a co-operative? So not entirely profit driven, although of course they need to balance the books.

www.suma.coop/

current year due to soaring inflation, as the supermarket focuses on supporting customers through the cost-of-living crisis.

Sainsbury’s said the year ahead would be impacted by significant external pressures and uncertainties, including higher operating costs and the cost-of-living pressures impacting customers’ disposable incomes.

It revealed that underlying profit before tax for 2022-23 is expected to be between £630 million and £690 million – a significant drop from the £703 million analysts had been expecting.

March 2022

@Bertieboo82 £630 million is still HUGE profits….

I think lots of places are doing this including pubs and restaurants. There's so much talk in the press about it that they think we'll we can het away with it for more profit or on advance of when it may actually impact us / we have to pay higher electricity costs. For example my local pub recently put the price of a bottled beer I drink up by 90p, even though they freely admitted it was still the same stock they had out back and already bought at existing prices from the supplier.

It usually backfires I find. Even before all this talk in the press we had stopped buying Lurpak. That's 2 blocks a week, every week, for decades that Lurpack have lost from us, multiplied by how ever many other families have also done so. Same with the bottled beer, that I'm not drinking anymore. If they'd put either up by 10 or 20p I'd have barely noticed, or cared. When they put things up by nearly a pound in one go, consumers notice and alter their purchasing behaviour.

Why would the government do anything?
Our food chain isn't nationalised, it's run by private / listed companies.

If you think they should be taxed more heavily so they don't make profit.. you'll just see them close down and then you'll not have to worry about high prices. Because the shelves will be empty.

Whether you like it or not, they're in business to make a profit.

But it's a high competitive market. None of them can afford to lose sales if their prices are too high. Consumers have a choice of products and stores. You can exercise that choice by buying what you want from where you want. Heinz or Nescafé too high? Then switch to another brand or go don't buy into the category at all.

Yes

but we aren’t talking about profits

your thread is about profiteering from the crisis.

two totally different issues

Co-op has always been scandalous though. I raise my eyebrows at anyone doing a big shop in there, I nip in because it's the closest and has parking but Co-op is a strictly no basket no trolley shop 😆

@alwaysmovingforwards Because some people will literally starve if food prices keep increasing so rapidly. The Government has it in its gift to influence and change that at a strategic level.

From sales approx £30bn.
So a profit margin of about 2%.

Do you think a 2% profit is an unreasonable margin for a private business to make?

If they make less share price falls and the city will not invest in them / give them access to working capital.

Again, you turn don't have to worry about prices because they close down and everyone working there looks for another job.

But again, I guess the gubberment "should be doing something!"

How can they?

how can they force a private company to lower costs when a major employer in this country is reaping in a paltry 2% profit?

@alwaysmovingforwards I don’t appreciate your tone on your last line. We have a cost of living crisis. We SHOULD be demanding a government that makes active decisions to protect and support the people of the country in this. I’m not some stupid nimby to think this.

Yes, the co=op is a co-op but amongst all the coop societies out there it is the one most closely ressembling a capitalist unit as it also owns banks and so on.

You will find if you are a member you get invited to events/local branch meetings etc.

If we had one nearby personally I would probably shop there for preference - as a lot depends on popping in on way home to search for bargains these days. But we don't and I can't get there so I don't.