Food is too cheap ?

[Loveshelly]

Food has never been cheaper, meat is unbelievably cheap. Even with a conscious move towards less meat consumption it’s clear that huge consumption of cheap meat is going on.

AIBU to think that we all need to spend more on our produce, especially in the wake of brexit, we clearly cannot rely on cheap labour anymore. So we are going to have to pay more.

All I tend to see on MN is people desperate to get food bills down, then on another thread people fretting they can’t keep heating on all night.

Have we become totally skewed about what are the things we should be spending more and less on.

Here’s a —cheap— biscuit for you

Life is expensive at the moment. Many people are not in the position to pay more for food as they are paying well above the odds for housing, heating etc.

I agree that food is cheap in this country, however everything else is extortion. Train fares, housing and everything in between. These are things people cannot control, whereas with food it is something that you can shop around for in a way or even produce some of your own.

How is charging me £20 for chicken instead of £6 going make things better? We have better welfare standards than we have ever had, if they didn’t make a profit they would not be in business.

Food has never been cheaper are you absolutely sure of that?

Meat isn’t unbelievably cheap if you don’t want beef mince or chicken. I’ve just come back from Sainsbury’s where two lamb shanks were £13.00!! Pork and beef joints were also v expensive. I don’t eat chicken because supermarket chicken is disgusting and all the butchers near me have closed.

Where is all the cheap food? I thought food prices were going up.

I’m not talking about the fact that life is expensive. I understand it’s a huge and wide problem. And down to inflation. Wages. Stagnation. House prices etc etc.

But the cost of a pint of milk in 1990 was 28p and in 2018 was 44p and yet people aren’t up in arms about that.

I worry for our food industries. Especially farming.

Not sure how being worried that we think it’s ok to pay farmers so little is worth a biscuit!

I think meat is artificially cheap. Veg etc isn’t.

Food prices are going up. They were too cheap for too long. They did not go up in the same way as everything else we pay for in life.

Thank god something is cheap! Everything else in this country is extortionate.

Food has never been cheaper
Food prices are going up. They were cheap for too long

Just the knock on effect. Farms closing. 150,000 pigs to potentially be culled because they can’t afford the cheap labour anymore.
So we can’t have it both ways really. I eat meat and even I was a bit 😱 about the culling of animals simply because pork is artificially cheap in comparison to its cost of production.

If housing costs weren’t so ridiculously high, we could afford more for better quality food.

I haven't kept a record of what I spend on different foods but the thing that sticks in my mind for some reason is the price of peppers - around 65p for a reasonably sized one, and it's been the same for many years, and I'm fairly sure that several other things haven't changed that much in a long time, so in general I think YANBU.

120,000 pigs are going to be culled soon due to a shortage of butchers and abattoir workers. That’s a shocking waste - of animal life and food.

@TheQueenOfDreams
I totally agree. I’m not saying people just pay more. I think this is a really huge problem that people cannot afford to pay more. So prices are driven down to unsustainable levels.
Which I think is worrying!
But clearly people think I’m just having a dig at people who can’t afford £20 chickens. Which I’m not,

Food is something we all need. Like housing. But if we can’t afford to make it, deliver it. What happens next.

Have you ever been poor, OP? The biscuits are probably coming from the fact you sound quite ignorant.

[quote Loveshelly]@TheQueenOfDreams
I totally agree. I’m not saying people just pay more. I think this is a really huge problem that people cannot afford to pay more. So prices are driven down to unsustainable levels.
Which I think is worrying!
But clearly people think I’m just having a dig at people who can’t afford £20 chickens. Which I’m not,

Food is something we all need. Like housing. But if we can’t afford to make it, deliver it. What happens next.[/quote]
Read your original post again and you might see why people think that.

As pps have said "Thank God something is cheap."
People can't afford the extortionate prices for gas, electric, council tax, rent and other bills. Genuine question Op, what would you like us all to eat and live on ? Food being "cheap" surely has to be a good thing as otherwise some people couldn't afford to eat.

I think we are currently having a huge price adjustment in goods and services.

Bye bye to the cheap, low wage economy and hello to the real cost of of our goods and services!
Also known as Brexit and conveniently blamed on The Pandemic.

Granted, wages will be moving at a snail pace while everything else will race ahead at 200 mph. But things will even themselves out in the shape of a recession.

Depends on how much is your food budget,what can you afford?

I’d rather eat less but better quality(and more expensive) than cheap shit,I’d rather buy mince from the butcher than supermarket (huuuge difference).
Saying that I’m still enough financially comfortable to avoid it(might be not for long though)

I have been in my life on absolute bones of my arse so I appreciate the luxury of still having a choice.

Different areas of UK will have different prices/wages, accessibility and affordability.
What really annoys me is the amount of processed shit in the shops and how cheap it is compared to more nutritious food.(packet of biscuits v pack of apples)
I’m not happy with the “beauty standards” of fruit and veg sold to people. Even so called “wonky” fruit and veg in the supermarket still doesn’t eliminate the waste that farmers compost every year when so many people go to the food banks.

I think it actually would be good for people to go hungry for a while. It would make them appreciate more the food they have readily available but still moan about colour/shape/use by date.

I’m worried about the fact we are all used to paying £2 for chicken
How the hell is that sustainable, that’s not saying pay £20 for a chicken

I am worried that people consider food the thing we should all cut down on first.

When in reality if 150k of pigs get slaughtered because there is no feasible infrastructure to bring us cheap pork, then that’s fucked up. Really fucked up.

We accept inflation in all other areas of life but we don’t seem to want to with food.

I know many people are struggling to make ends meet, but actually I agree with the OP, especially in relation to milk and chicken. If food wasn't so cheap, people might value it more and not waste so much of it.

My parents were both brought up during the war. As a result they never wasted food and we children were never allowed to do so either.