To be horrified at the price of food

[Thorts]

Single pepper, now 60p - everywhere.
Apple juice - 99p everywhere for the cheap stuff

How are people supposed to eat fresh fruit and veg daily (and the right amount) with these prices?

If you were to look at processed food however; pack of ham 20p, custard creams 20p, garlic bread 35p.

You could get two of all the processed items mentioned for less price than one pepper and one carton of 1L value Apple juice.

Surely something needs to be done?

I agee. Although it’s not quite right to say salaries have hardly gone up since, as average salary has risen 85% since 2000. I do suspect food costs have gone up by more than that but not hugely, but it’s all the other costs going up that has made it so much worse.
I’d happily pay double what I currently do for all my food shopping if we could go back to the equivalent year 2000 rent and mortgage costs

Not a food snob. I like good food. And I can afford to eat reasonably. I have never bought food like asparagus tips, only cheaper ingredients. But I do not have to only eat the cheapest food.
Custard powder is only - Maize Starch, Salt, Colour (Annatto Norbixin), Flavouring
It is effectively a thickener and you have to add milk and sugar yourself.

@NoisySnail ok fair enough but I'd honestly not want to do a whole weeks shop of that kind of food. Maybe some battered fish with potatoes and veg of some kind.
I'm much happier feeding my family the pasta with simple tomato sauce with some protein and veg added, even a small amount, dahl and rice, jacket potato, omelettes, curry and rice.
Even when we were skint, that's the kind of food we'd usually have.
I would feel ill on such a processed diet and I feel really bad that people are living like that.
There are consequences when your diet is that lacking in nutrients as well as the inflammation from eating a huge amount of upfs.

So. It’s nice and doesn’t hurt on top of a homemade crumble made with apples that don’t meet your high expectations either.

I have to eat on a budget, many do and manage to eat healthily.

@AstralSpace I would not want to eat that kind of food every day either. But I can afford to eat a bit better, can pay my energy bill, and am not on an expensive pre payment meter.
In terms of public health, if you want people to eat healthily you make the healthy option the easiest and cheapest.
In some countries abroad there is lots of cheap healthy street food available to buy. Even when I lived in London I was near a cafe that sold cheap veg meals to eat in or take away. It was an easier choice than buying a pizza and cooking it.
Whereas most of the time the healthy choice is harder to do and more expensive.
And what nobody takes into account when discussing this is when you are stressed and barely coping, you do not always have the bandwidth to choose the harder option.

You do a dis service to the many people that have to and mange to eat healthily in a low income.

I have a low income. A single person on universal credit only is not on a low income, they are officially in absolute poverty.

Don’t really understand the ‘food has been too cheap for too long’ crowd, do people really believe the current prices are due to farmers being paid more fairly?

Surely not.

Aldi was selling carrots, swede, onions and a bag of potatoes for 15 p each yesterday. I grow raspberries, strawberries, cooking apples, rhubarb, sugar snap peas, runner beans, cherry tomatoes and chillies. Also lots of different herbs and various salad leaves. You can grow herbs and salad leaves in a window box and cherry tomatoes in a grow bag.

ALDI was selling it as a loss leader in the few days before Easter. They do the same just before Christmas. The rest of the year a bag of carrots is about 80p, a bag of potatoes about £1.15, and onions about a £1.

Choose different fruit & veg. Buy seasonal. Peppers are imported, need green houses and lots of water.

Swede yesterday in Tesco - 15p. Mashed with black pepper and butter it's lovely.
Six apples for 89p
9 Satsumas for 99p
1kg onions 69p
1kg carrots 80p
Large head of broccoli 89p

British rhubarb is in season. In fact find someone with rhubarb in their garden and they'll probably give you some for free. (It grows a lot when it rains!)

OP the people mostly giving advice on this thread do not have to live on a very tight budget. It shows in their "advice". MN is too full of well of people for this kind of discussion.

Yes. Elitist attitudes are a plenty on here. It would be funny as an ' expose ' on the average middle class mumsnetter , if it wasn't such bad taste when sensitive topics like food poverty weren't being discussed.

I'd never heard of Heron Foods but just checked out the prices and they seem very very expensive.

Battered fish (hake) £10kg, whereas £7kg in Tesco.
£11.50kg for Chicken Chargrills which are just chicken breasts dipped in breadcrumbs & seasoning. £6.20/kg in Tesco.

Lots of ultra processed stuff. Not much there I would eat because I can make healthier, better quality, nicer tasting for probably 30% less cost and in very little time.

I'm a single, full time working mum, shopping on a food budget of £50 a week for 1 adult, 1 endlessly hungry teen boy. I usually spend £10 a week on fresh fruit & veg. Also buy some frozen - spinach, sweetcorn, peas. Tinned kidney beans & tomatoes

We usually manage 25-30 different fruit & veg a week. It really isn't difficult. Just buy seasonal to mix with the basics..

@Meadowfinch their offers are in store and they have some very cheap ranges. You have never been in the shop so have no idea what you are talking about.
But for the record they are like B and M. Some things are more expensive, some things are very cheap.

@NoisySnail I love heron foods. Maybe you have to be ' proper poor' to appreciate.

@NoisySnail No, I admit, I have never been in a Heron Foods shop. Maybe in-store is better.

That’s clearly not true, as other posts have shown. Despite the clusterf* of BREXIT fresh fruit / veg is still cheaper in the UK as those of us who live / spend time in France have posted! UK retailers are to blame, with their ruthless efficiency and year-round flat pricing. Because they squeeze growers to the bone they have no choice but to put up proves, or they’d have empty shelves, especially in winter. Come the summer, they’ll take the opportunity to push prices right back down as supply > exceeds demand.

Coming back to peppers, where this started, coincidentally I read in today’s Sunday times that 60% of the cost involved in getting a pepper to the shelf is labour. The minim wage has gone up 20%, so there’s a 12% increase in the cost of a pepper right there, before you consider the impact of anything else.

The reality is that retailers have had to pay growers more or face empty shelves, as weather and labours shortages across Europe have meant shortages which have driven up prices. And let to more and more airfreighted imports, also at higher prices, economically and environmentally.

Where are you finding ham and custard creams at 20p???

Custard creams are 30p in M&S, so not far off.

I run a kind of food bank which operates as a pantry, so people choose what they want from the options we have available. What we’ve seen for years now is that people do want fresh produce. In retail shops the barrier is financial. The veg that we find hardest to shift is the unfamiliar - eg celeriac needs a recipe attached for most people to take a punt.

It is absolutely a price and mental bandwidth issue ime.

And last week we had multi packs of peppers. Amusing given this thread. Around 200kg worth, ex-Tesco. Presumably they didn’t sell as many as expected.

YANBU. It really pisses me off as well as people still say things like "food is too cheap" or blame consumers for going to supermarkets. It really isn't fucking cheap, and already millions of people can't afford to eat properly. Farmers aren't being paid enough for the produce and customers are paying too much. Well, someone is creaming it off in the middle! And it isn't consumers' fault.

Oh British rhubarb is in season. Woo fucking hoo. About the most useless cunting vegetable on the planet. I like it but once I've had a bit of crumble or yogurt I wouldn't want it again for a month at least and I don't even eat desserts normally anyway. And there is always a metric fuckton of the stuff and you can't give it away for love nor money. Rhubarb can seriously fuck off.

The trick with basil is they put far too many plants in the pot. If you split them up in a bigger pot or multiple pots outside then pinch the leaves from the top then they will grow bushy and you will have loads of basil.

Very much issue with most supermarket hebrs. So many people think the dying plant is them doing something wrong and give up after 4th when it's just overcrowding.

Also, herbs freeze amazingly. I have numerous bags in freezer and they work great.