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.

There are still basic foods that are cheap - eggs, seasonal fruit and veg, flour, oats, eg. Op seems to be focussed on meat though.

A punnet of berries costs more than a multipack of Snickers. Milk or mineral water costs more than an energy drink.
Good meat and fish are expensive. I don't mean £2 chickens.

Depends on what food you're referring to. I'd say food isn't actually that cheap and families are in poverty, struggling to put food on the table.

Whenever I visit the UK from NZ I am unpleasantly surprised by how cheap food is in the UK. There seems to be little seasonality. People expect the same food at the same price as year round.
Here, capsicum in the summer may be as cheap as $1 (50p) but in winter when they don't grow naturally and need to be imported, they can be as much as $5. So we don't buy them in winter.
The UK needs to return to eating what is in season, grown in the country and paying what food costs to produce.

@CatsArePeople

food isn't cheap. Bad, processed food is very cheap. anything fresh and decent - costs so much more.

A lot of veg is cheap, especially seasonal stuff like carrots, and fruit- a pack of 6 bananas is around £1; cheaper than a multipack of chocolate, and impressive seen as though they've been picked abroad, shipped over, packaged at some point, transported to supermarket warehouses and then individual stores, and then someone puts them onto the shelf, and someone then scans it (or you scan it but the machine has been paid for so still has a cost attached). Plenty of other healthy foods are reasonable, wholewheat pasta and rice, lentils and other pulses, oats, milk, eggs, frozen veg etc. Sure crating a meal out of those isn't always possible or appealing, but neither is cheap processed food on its own. I agree there is an abundance of food that afterall has been made to taste good and bring a profit which no matter the price will never compete in many ways with fresh foods.

Sure crating a meal out of those isn't always possible or appealing

That's the main problem. Cooking from scratch involves shopping from scratch. You can buy a mac'n'cheese ready meal for £1 in Iceland. Try to do your own will cost at least £3

Boris is that you?

Food is expensive. Farmers don’t get paid enough.

It’s the middlemen you need to look at.

The food is really cheap here. Including fresh food. Aldi is running carrots for 20something p a kilo. A kilo!

@CatsArePeople

Sure crating a meal out of those isn't always possible or appealing

That's the main problem. Cooking from scratch involves shopping from scratch. You can buy a mac'n'cheese ready meal for £1 in Iceland. Try to do your own will cost at least £3

But the ingredients would last for more than one meal so it's not really equivalent, people are unlikely to buy a one person portion (which is what the ready meals are) of pasta or cheese, and many have milk in the fridge already.

@CatsArePeople

There are still basic foods that are cheap - eggs, seasonal fruit and veg, flour, oats, eg. Op seems to be focussed on meat though.

A punnet of berries costs more than a multipack of Snickers. Milk or mineral water costs more than an energy drink.
Good meat and fish are expensive. I don't mean £2 chickens.

Luckily no one needs a punnet of berries or mineral water then. There are cheaper fruits, and tap water is perfectly adequate. And according to Sainsburys, milk is 51p/litre (bought in a 4 pinter), way cheaper than any energy drink. You're probably right about 'good meat' though cheap fish seems good enough.

Food may be "cheap" but the actual cost of living is high. I earn an average salary, have 2 DC at home and 1DC at uni and every month is a struggle; we eat more pasta/rice dishes than are necessary. I'd love for food to be at a better price for those that make the produce but until housing/utilities/fuel become affordable it's not going to happen. It's very naive to think anything else, unless you're earning a lot of money.

Food is extremely cheap in the U.K. Try paying £5 for a bag of oranges, £4 for a stick of butter, £5 for a loaf of bread, £20 for a chicken, £4 for one cauliflower, £1 for one tomato here in the US (regular supermarket).

Cheese is expensive

@bellaweir

Cheese is expensive

Some cheese is, yes. Some is not.

@Hawkins001.
Just read a post from you ? Like another pp said, please have a bit of respect for others and not post on things you don't know anything about.
I don't smoke, I don't drink. I don't go out. I can't walk very far.
Luckily for me I am on loads of medications and one particular one means that I do get them for free, otherwise I could not afford to buy them. I can drive but can't afford to. I certainly can't afford £50 a week on food as a pp said that is what they spend. After losing my job, health and home I am definitely on the bones of my arse. I am staying in a friends spare room but I have nothing to contribute.

Farmers were able to accept the prices given to them for their goods as they received EU funding. Not sure what will happen now............

@CatsArePeople

Sure crating a meal out of those isn't always possible or appealing

That's the main problem. Cooking from scratch involves shopping from scratch. You can buy a mac'n'cheese ready meal for £1 in Iceland. Try to do your own will cost at least £3

The thing is for that £1 you would get one meal. For that £3 (I think probably £3.50-4) you could get at least ten portions, potentially more, so only 30-40p per meal. This is why when on a low budget meal planning and store cupboard management is so important, but there are loads of guides online to help with this.

It is the same with takeaways, people say a takeaway pizza is a cheap treat, yet to feed a family of four it would cost £30, to do that from supermarket pizzas would cost around £8, it would cost a similar amount to do it from scratch but you would have ingredients left over that could be used for other meals.

@CatsArePeople

There are still basic foods that are cheap - eggs, seasonal fruit and veg, flour, oats, eg. Op seems to be focussed on meat though.

A punnet of berries costs more than a multipack of Snickers. Milk or mineral water costs more than an energy drink.
Good meat and fish are expensive. I don't mean £2 chickens.

You don't need a punnet of berries and a 1kg bag of apples (10-12) or a bag of ten oranges costs £1.50-2.00 depending on the time of year, a multipack of nine Snickers costs £2.00-2.50 depending on offers.

Milk costs £0.51 per litre, energy drinks range from £1.40 to £4.50 per litre and are bad for health. Tap water is so cheap as to be effectively free for drinking purposes with a cost of £0.00138 per litre, the whole of the UK has a potable water supply and bottled mineral water is incredibly damaging environmentally.

Maybe food is artificially cheap but how are people supposed to just afford to pay more? I’m public sector and my pay was frozen for over 10 years. Then I have received tiny pay rises for the last few years and now it’s frozen again. Oh and then there’s the National insurance rise so actually it’s a pay cut.

I am always bit baffled why people drag berries into this. I suspect it's because that is basically the only support for "fresh food is expensive"?

I agree with you OP but I appreciate if you're struggling to pay the bills it won't be a popular opinion.
I grow some of my own vegetables but it's so much cheaper to buy them in the supermarket. If you think about the length of time it takes to grow a cauliflower - up to 5 months, the amount of space they take to grow and the fact that I can buy one in my nearest supermarket for 79p, I struggle to see how anyone can make any money from it.

@Jijithecat

I agree with you OP but I appreciate if you're struggling to pay the bills it won't be a popular opinion. I grow some of my own vegetables but it's so much cheaper to buy them in the supermarket. If you think about the length of time it takes to grow a cauliflower - up to 5 months, the amount of space they take to grow and the fact that I can buy one in my nearest supermarket for 79p, I struggle to see how anyone can make any money from it.

We grow veg and I agree it takes time and is certainly not something we could make money on, I am not sure we even break even on it (seeds, plant feed that is safe for food consumption etc.) but it is more about teaching our kids on how food grows than money.

We are also lucky that there are two large apple trees and three cherry trees in out garden which are probably as old as I am and produce huge amounts of apples and cherries every year for free. We eat plenty, freeze loads (for crumble, pie etc.) and give loads away, but I can't claim any credit for the trees, they were the when we bought the house.

Aw thank you @Loveshelly for offering to pay for my weeks shopping forever.

Unless you're willing to put your money where your mouth is, I wouldn't be giving opinions on expecting people to pay more for food. Some are struggling enough as it is.

But the ingredients would last for more than one meal so it's not really equivalent, people are unlikely to buy a one person portion (which is what the ready meals are) of pasta or cheese, and many have milk in the fridge already

And then we’re in the territory of the ‘boots theory’.