Supermarkets are taking the pi$$

[ButterflyTable]

I can’t believe how expensive food is now especially in the likes of Sainsbury’s for the same product. Total P-take, e.g. Organic Milk Sainsbury’s £2 Aldi £1.79.

Why give us ‘nectar’ prices when they are inflated prices in the first place? £5.50 for a Pizza Express Margherita and £2.75 on Nectar. I think actually it’s the fakery with making us think we are getting a good deal that’s pissing me off.

I went to Aldi today (we don’t have one near us) as I was doing a drop off nearby and the price difference is huge!!

I want quality and I am prepared to pay for it so I shop at Waitrose. I got sick of paying too much for shoddy produce at Asda, Morrisons and Aldi. Its a false economy. Everything has shrunk and the quality had fallen dramatically in some instances ao you're actually paying even more than the extra 30p theyve stuck on everything.

Sorry. Im not with you.

So what if, in the unlikely event, DWP replace some of your cash with vouchers? You’d still be able to get your weekly food shop at the supermarket, using vouchers, instead of cash wouldn’t you? What difference would it make to you?

You’re deluded and it’s emperors new clothes. I shop at Aldi, Ssinsbury for the bits I can’t get at Aldi. Many items are better at Aldi- tinned tomatoes, olive oil, bread, coffee, wine, frozen veg, cheese, chocolate… A few like chicken, sausages, potatoes and apples are not. Many items are the same and a shed load cheaper. The savings are huge. I just can’t bring myself to chuck money away for pure snobbery.

I had to go to Waitrose today instead of Sainsbury and the extortionate prices for the same items are nuts. Ecover, rhubarb, shelled pistachio nuts, Faith in Nature shower gel, aubergines, limp pac choy, lemons way past it……Shop there but don’t say it’s some superior shopping experience because it isn’t. It’s cramped and full of snotty people with rip off prices.

Aldi has some good things but generally the quality is quite poor. No organic range.

@Sw33tR3d I like Waitrose but agree nuts are extortionate there.

I hate Tesco. I find it really expensive but poor quality. Sainsbury's is usually better value than Tesco.

I have found online shopping to be much cheaper. You can keep reviewing your basket.

That isn’t true. The quality for many items is better.

It’s not just nuts. It’s most things- for the same items and massively anything from 75p to over £2. Add that up on a weekly shop and it’s an insane amount to chuck away for pure snobbery.

Nobody helps to pack your bags in Sainsbury and away from the tills you can’t find staff anywhere.

I dont shop for snobbery reasons. I shop at Waitrose online for staple diet items - apples, meat, fish and eggs for the quality. I dont go there to get Faith in fucking Nature shower gel, ecover or pac choy darling. You sound like the snob. And no the quality at Aldi is not the same - for one thing Waitrose have an animal welfare policy. Yet Aldi's beef mince is somehow more expensive.

Buying environmentally friendly products isn’t snobbery. 🙄 Charging far more for the same items in every department is just ripping customers off. It’s not some superior shopping experience. Aldi do about 4 different mince types so not sure what you’re looking at.

@potato57 would you mind sharing which companies you use?
would really appreciate it :)

Did I say it was a "superior shopping experience". I shop online not in store. Although I dare say it might well be given my local aldi is fairly cramped.
I dont buy anything other than food in Waitrose and yes if you want certaim brands and theyre more expensive in Waitrose then obviously you go somewhere else.
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/essential-british-beef-mince-20-fat/628170-726394-726395

@DollyDoofer here's an example for you.

I'm on a low income and qualify for free school meals. During lockdown we were lucky enough to get supermarket vouchers to help with food shopping. But those vouchers could only be used in store, and only at big supermarkets.
They could not be used for click and collect or delivery. I had 4 young dc, including 2 disabled dc who could not cope with going to the supermarket. I couldn't leave the dc at home and go and shop, and I couldn't take them with me to shop, so I couldn't use the vouchers.

I'm personally not ok with the idea of treating benefits claimants like untrustworthy children, so the idea of issuing vouchers I find very distasteful.

It can be. But many years ago in my naivete I thought all milk was free range… so I thought OP might have been confusing the two.

I loaded an online Sainsburys basket with branded goods, then put the same in my Ocado basket, I was amazed that the Ocado shop was £12 cheaper, combined with buying M & S & Ocado own brand stuff, Ocado is no more expensive. I did the same between Morrison's & Ocado & the difference was £5 in Ocado's favour. If Aldi did deliveries I would try there, but they don't.

For non-branded, I've always found Morrison's and Ocado dearer than Sainsbury's. I've similarly filled matching baskets online. I wonder how many people solely buy branded products? (There have been threads on that type of thing.)

The thing is that we all shop in different ways, and therefore the supermarket we find to be cheapest will vary depending on shopping habits.

We can all proclaim 'X supermarket is cheapest for me', but the reason it is may not apply to everybody.

I am usually struggling for time when I shop, so go to Waitrose, Lidl or Aldi based on what’s nearby and how big the store is. If the store is massive it takes much longer to get everything bought. The Sainsbury’s near us is ludicrously big.

As I said Aldi is cheaper. I checked everything I bought in Waitrose( I had no choice but to go there in this instance), put loads back after price checking but still every item I had to buy was more expensive. Loving the way even their “budget” range is more expensive. It’s such a farce.

I generally try to go for beef mince with a lower fat content anyway. 20% is a lot of fat. The price difference between Aldi and Waitrose for 5% beef mince is even bigger. It’s nearly double with Sainsbury in the middle.

Aldi-£3.49
Sainsbury£4.99
Waitrose £6.25

If you are just looking at price Lidl an Aldi tend to be the cheapest - but not by that much.

Animal Welfare, paying farmers fairly etc - Waitrose are the best. Their 'Essential' range is higher quality than the 'mid-tier' range at Tesco and Sainsbury's.

I do wish people would think more about how they spend their money on food. Personally, I think people need to spend more on food if they are able.

Not sure why nectar schemes etc get people all heated.
We save all the points up and then put towards the big shop at Christmas. Works for us, costs nothing to join and we see benefits. Yeah they can probably track you purchases and stuff but who cares.

@ButterflyTable
Also I do not think grocery retailers are profiteering vast swathes of money from their customers.
When the retailers went to the parliament select committee in the last year or so to answer this exact question, it became obvious that the government were questioning the wrong organisations. Pretty sure that all the retailers said that out of every £100 of sales they make £1 profit.

The Waitrose essential range really isn’t better quality. I’ve bought several items from diff departments over the years. And £1.50 is a massive jump from Aldi to Sainsbury for 1 item!!! Waitrose price for the same item is nuts. I do not have the money to pay more when the prices are insane,I have a family to feed and a mortgage to pay. There is no should to paying more when supermarkets are using every trick in the book to con us out of money and prices are insane.

When I have spare cash it will be spent on my local farm shop but that will be years down the line, if ever. We have cut our meat consumption, shop from scratch with zero waste and literally can’t do anymore

The speculation has been that vouchers would control how and where you spend that benefit. It’s been mooted in the past and wasn’t implemented because, among other reasons, not all supermarkets wanted to engage with it. And a voucher system may not include online shopping - which would be unhelpful for disabled people for example.