How much fonio does your family get through in a week and how much will the reduction in price help you?

[noblegiraffe]

The govt have released a list of 125 "everyday essentials" that they plan to cut tax on to help families with the cost of living.

It's a bit of a weird list. Beans, biscuits and chocolate yes, a bit more baffled by the fresh figs, gherkins and plantains. And I had to google fonio.

Aubergines
Avocados
Baked beans
Bananas (fresh and dried)
Biscuits
Boiled sweets
Bread
Buckwheat
Candied fruit
Chewing gum
Chocolate (bulk and retail)
Chocolate bars
Chocolate drink preparations
Chocolate spreads
Chocolate with fruit, nuts or cereal
Citrus fruits (various)
Cocoa paste
Cocoa powder
Couscous
Crispbread
Crisps
Dried apples
Dried apricots
Dried figs
Dried papaya
Dried peaches/nectarines
Dried pears
Fonio
Fresh figs
Frozen fruits
Garlic
Gherkins
Gingerbread
Green tea
Jams and marmalades
Limes
Liquorice products
Margarine
Marzipan and pastes
Mixed dried fruit
Mixed fats and oils
Mixed fruit and nuts
Mixed nuts
Mixed preserved fruit and nuts
Non-alcoholic beverages
Olive oil (extra virgin)
Olive oil (other)
Olive oil (virgin)
Olives (for oil production)
Olives (fresh/chilled)
Olives (frozen)
Other fresh fruits
Other peppers (capsicum/pimenta)
Pickled peppers
Pizzas and quiches
Plant-based drinks
Plantains (fresh and dried)
Prepared vegetables
Preserved beans
Preserved citrus fruits
Preserved tropical fruit
Preserved vegetables
Processed potatoes
Quinoa
Rusks
Soups and broths
Sugar confectionery
Sugar tablets
Sweet peppers
Throat pastilles
Toasted bread products
Toffees and caramels
Tomato ketchup
Tomato sauces
Vegetable oils
Waffles and wafers

If you search Sainsbury’s online it has a whole load of Polish food on there but not plantain (except some crisp type things).

I wouldn't call a list of 80-odd percent vegetables, pulses, grains, fruit and healthy oils (plus cocoa) extremely unhealthy. I don't suppose for a moment that the PP sends her kids out into the world on a diet of Nutella, Lockets and Werther's Originals.

Definitely looks like a list from the Customs tariff. Everything that comes in and out of the UK is assigned a long number - commodity code - which determines what tax and duty will apply. When it was in a physical form it ran to at least 3 large books - and you would determine the best code for what was being imported depending on ingredient, manufacturing process etc so would end up with categories like olive oil(extra virgin), olive oil (other).

I’m surprised at the chocolate but with the price of it going up, can’t say I’m displeased. Where do you get gingerbread from though? Is that the gingerbread biscuits you buy in supermarkets?

I must tell DB and SIL about this. They’ll be so pleased (sarcasm).

I read in a novel (book) written in 1920s that sugar was taxed in Ireland then, so for biscuits. Truth or lie?

Is that on line or home delivery? Our home delivery Sainsbury's branch is pretty bad and I can't get a lot of things delivered that I could buy in either of the Sainsbury's a few miles away.

On the main website, I don’t do home delivery so it doesn’t know my location.

What, so everyday essentials just means for white folks?

Cus, well, I was under the impression that governments are kind of meant to give a shit about EVERYONE?

There are plenty of people born in the UK who eat plantain a few times a week, hun.

It really doesn't take anything from us if they get a few pence off it!

Really? Because it comes up when I search it.

Bloody hell I thought I was good knowledgeable but never heard of fonio or sugar tablet. Frozen olives eh??? Only about 10 of the items are ever in my shopping basket. Weird or maybe I’m the weird one!

It does say 'currently unavailable' so you still can't buy it!

Maybe the main website only shows available stock.

Why is our government so weird 😱

Now you need to find the groups of people who consider every other item on the list an everyday essential too, to make it an actual list of everyday essentials and not just a list of stuff they could remove tariffs from.

Not sure about some of those items but I'm sure you'll manage, hun.

Throat pastilles 🤔

None of these ‘savings’ will be passed on to the public though. The companies will absorb them.

I expect those were already zero-rated. I don't know a huge amount about VAT on food but I've read about the court case in the 90s where whether Jaffa Cakes were a cake or a biscuit was crucial for whether they should be taxed. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes

I would guess from context that a list of "basic foods" to be zero-rated (presumably including cheese etc) was compiled in the 1970s and it's probably long overdue for the list to be reconsidered.

And as for fonio - no I've never heard of it but a broad review of which foods are "basic" should not, as an important point of principle, only look at foods that are commonly considered "normal" in western style diets, and foods that are stable basics for immigrant families shouldn't have a luxury tax on them

The main website for sainsbury and tesco only shows items that are generally available in all stores, the actual items stocked by stores varies according to the local demographic, oddly enough not a great demand for Caribbean or Korean food in my local stores, so they don't stock it. I don't understand why it is so difficult for people to understand that this list is about goods that have tariffs applied on imports from certain countries. Tariffs are a well known system for taxing imports and have been in the news quite a lot thanks to the orange twat in the White House who despite his protestations seems to have a sub-zero IQ and doesn't understand basic economics and trading relationships.

With further reading of the thread - my post is quite a bit incorrect if this is about customs duty rather than VAT but the overall principle will be similar

Exactly, why not all fresh fruits and veg instead of the sweets, crisps and chocolate paste and chewing gum?

Seems like it must have been a category that it was easy to include in the scheme so they lumped it all in.

What the hell is fonio??? 🤪

It’s a sort of millet

What are local international stores? I’m in north Scotland. I was actually quite curious to try fonio but it’s not available in good plain old Asda sadly,

Yeah that's probably it..bizarre though as it's not a food available to the general public.

That intrigues me too - how will the expected reductions be monitored I wonder.