Price of butter

[CurlewKate]

I bought some butter yesterday in Morrisons. I thought it was a special offer as £2 for Anchor. Realised too late that it was only 200g, not the usual 250g. A warning to anyone who might be caught out- and commiserations to anyone like me who already has been!

That’s naughty of Anchor but so many places are reducing pack size instead of raising prices.

Butter is one of the things that has gone up the most according to a report I was reading the other day. I used to buy Sainsbury’s Finest butter until they suddenly raised the price in one go from £2.40/250g to around £3.40. As a result I stopped buying last year. I just looked and it’s back down to a more reasonable price.

Tesco’s premium line butter is cheaper than Trewithen’s Dairy butter so we buy that when we shop in Tesco. Also, last weekend, we ended up doing an emergency food delivery from Iceland (Tesco cancelled our order on the day and we have no car at the moment after an accident!) and noticed that Lurpak spreadable is on offer for both 750g and 375g packs

Price of butter is shocking. I love anchor spreadable, now £5.05 in Tesco for 500g, it was £4 not so long ago and God knows that was expensive enough. I can't justify spending that much anymore. They've also removed the price label from the shelf 🤔

M&S £1.90. Cheapest I've seen!

The M&S £1.90 salted butter is lovely

Do any of you work in the private sector?

If so, what's your gross margin.

Supermarkets operate at about 4%.

But yeah, we rip people off.

Second the M&S recommendation, we usually get their spreadable proper butter (Lurpak in a tub isn't butter) and buy the big tub because it works out cheaper.

M&S have very well priced basic versions of bread, milk, butter, cheese, eggs, veg and canned goods. Plus some chicken, sausages and bacon aren't that much more expensive than elsewhere and they have excellent 'meal deal' offers that are a good alternative to a takeaway.

So we now we do about 60% of our shopping in Aldi or Lidl (basically the types of things thst are usually expensive in M&S like deli things or they don't sell) then the rest in M&S.

Meaning we almost never use the big 4 so see a lot less of these silly games.

I paid £2.75 yesterday for a 250g pack of President salted butter. Bizarrely it was cheaper than Anchor, Lurpak and own brand, and didn’t seem to be on offer.

lurpak has gone from 250g to 200g too, shocking!

I've started making butter. A tub of double cream is cheaper and my kids love helping with it

But dairy should be expensive.

@Puccini1900 - why specifically dairy ? All good should probably be more expensive to properly pay the farmers and agricultural workers and the costs associated but we’re in a cost of living crisis and everyone is feeling the pinch. Why should dairy specifically be more expensive? ( unless your reason is a hollier than though one - in which case I don’t really care)

Because dairy farmers are paid next to nothing?

If you want cheap, eat marg instead.

@Puccini1900 in that case we agree! But I wouldn’t say only dairy in that case, there are many labour intensive crops that don’t cost enough to be sustainable for farmers …

To be clear-I don't think food should be cheap at the expense of the people who produce/make it. What I am objecting to is manufacturers reducing the size of the package unannounced to conceal an increase in price.

I'm reading with interest - mainly at what some people call 'butter'! In my opinion anything 'spreadable' isn't butter. Butter is simply cream and salt with nothing added.

As you were...

Totally understand.

A few years ago I was in Belgium and we were being told by a tour guide why they sell cigarettes in packs of 19 not 20. Apparently the government wanted to rise prices by 5% but there was an outcry by the general population so the government gave them a choice - 5% price rise or reduce pack size from 20 to 19 and keep prices the same; overwhelming response was reduce pack size - not realising they were agreeing to a 5% price rise!!

Vroomfondleswaistcoat - Yes agree. A block of butter in Aldi yesterday was £1.89, which is cheaper than it has been, before it was £1.99.

I do have to say I am amused at what an encapsulation of Mumsnet this thread is. Someone posts about the price of butter. In less than 20 posts there's been a discussion about the best butter, an anti spreadable post, a pro M&S post, a recommendation to use marge instead because butter prices are unfairly low, a recipe for making your own and an anecdote about France! No mention of Waitrose, and nobody's told me to "LTB" or that it's probably my MIL's fault but apart from that....

It's called Shrinkflation. It's been a thing for decades, but a timely reminder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation

It's about 10 years since I smoked straights but I'm pretty sure they did this in this country too! Vague memory of refusing to buy certain brands as they only gave you 19 in a pack despite asking for a '20 deck/pack of 20' at the kiosk

I ordered my usual blocks of Lurpak with my shop, and I too was surprised to find they have shrunk by 50g...I'd rather they were transparent about price hikes than this!

“Because dairy farmers are paid next to nothing?”

But the supermarkets aren’t paying them - they’re picketing the inflated profits.

I noticed this too but with Lurpak and it was 200g instead of 250.

Farmfood do a 227g block of butter for £1.29

It’s sneaky