To think this increase in cost is going to break me?

[Yummmyy]

I earn a decent salary. Whenever I go to Tesco for a basic food shop, sone items are going up literally 50p plus within a matter of two weeks. Orange juice was 2.20 for Tesco’s basic, the most expensive 4.30!!

Yes I know orange juice isn’t an essential but when you’re well above minimum wage and have to cut something like that out of your food shop it does make you question what’s the point… anyone else relate to this? I just don’t know where it’s going to end

More likely to increase obesity as cheap pizza is cheaper than cooking a healthy meal from scratch.

Although to be fair, tescos are still predicting a £2.9bn profit this year. I’m not convinced they have to pass on the NI rise to customers.

It's the same all over Europe. France, Germany, Ireland... are all in shit street too!

So poor people would pay far higher tax than rich people.

I don't eat meat, either. You have no idea what animal you are actually getting. I stopped eating meat 15 years ago, when there were rumours that horse meat was getting into the food chain. I quit eating fish when I heard rumours that the tuna were eating humans who had died in a Tsunami.

I swapped to one of the cheap shops a couple of years ago. At first I was frustrated with the lesser choice but after a few weeks I was happier because a shopping trip took 30 minutes rather than an hour.

Vote with your feet. Some of the bigger supermarkets are taking the absolute piss with their prices.

If you can't save money shopping at Aldi or Lidl then you are probably putting too many branded items in your trolley.

I'll respond - as I can see you've already quoted me once, and then again commented again with an @ 🙄

My point was that I don't have more than £393.45pmth left once everything is paid for. Which would be the amount I would also receive as an over 25yr old lone adult.

I'm sure you no doubt wish to tell me how much you disagree with that. But it's a basic maths fact nothing more.

I know when I’ve been abroad I’ve been shocked at the prices of food. In various countries. It does seem like the gap is closing though.

Is that for 1 litre? Pretty sure the £2.20 price is for the 2 litre pack. Could be wrong though.

From concentrate is £1.75 a litre and not from concentrate is £2.25 for Ocado's own brand and Marks and Spencer's freshly squeezed is £3.50 a litre.

Re saving money by growing your own, I grow my own veg. There is no way it is cheaper by the time you count in compost, equipment (netting, fleece, gloves, etc). I do make my own compost (but still have to buy lots), I save seed when possible, make my own comfrey tea feed, recycle/reuse as much as I can - but it is still expensive. I do it because I enjoy it (even if it's hard work), it's good for my physical and mental health, the produce tastes better, I know how it has been grown etc but it does not save me money!

I found out recently our energy costs are the highest in Europe.

In America food shopping has risen greatly too.

M&S can be cheaper than Tesco I discovered. We buy most things from Lidl.

Agreed, I had an allotment several years ago and it was a good hobby, but definitely not cheap 👍

It’s not just the supermarkets though. I’ve been banging on about this since the budget. I think it’s bad at the moment and I really notice it in my weekly shop.

But I think it’s about to get worse. I’m a farmer. Produce something most people put in their baskets weekly. Lots of farmers now have contracts where if our costs go up (or down) what we get paid goes up (or down). A guaranteed profit margin if you will.

The minimum wage increase is having a huge impact on us. As is the NI contributions. Add in the water, electric and feed increases and it’s looking big. It’s the farmers, the packers, the warehouse staff, the supermarket cleaners - all these increases are adding up.

Agreed.

Both Aldi and Lidl are now similar to the major supermarkets, taking quality into consideration. The one that shocks me, not having used it much over the last couple of years, is Morrisons which had become ridiculously expensive while at the same time having massive gaps in stock.

Tesco's pre-tax profit was £2.3bn in 2024, on which they paid £525 million in taxes. So they had a profit after tax of £1.8billion on sales of £68.2bn. That's about 2% of turnover.

That's really not a high margin.

They also employ 330,000 employees.

I know you expect 'big business' to subsidise everyone in the UK, but if they don't make any profit there's really no reason for them to operate.

Whilst I absolutely agree that the rate prices are going is staggering...cheapest orange juice online at tesco is 95p for standard bottle
That being said the most expensive one,albeit slightly larger is a whopping £4.90!!

@Shitshower 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Not so stealth brag much?!

The other problem with growing your own is that your harvest coincides with the product being plentiful and quite cheap. We grew corn on the cob one year and had hundreds!

What an absolutely idiotic and evil thing to say. I don't normally I'll wish, but I hope you get everything you deserve.

I get £810 a month to live on on UC. I get extra because I have a chronic illness that means I have a limited capacity for work.

It's joyless and miserable.

Sainsbury's underlying profit was £573 million by December- and bear in mind they are stripping cafes and hot food out of their stors because profit margins are not increasing fast enough. Underlying profit means not taking into account any big one-off events eg selling assets like land or planned for redundancy costs- so profit on their core business. Their prices rise weekly at the minute.

Supermarkets are incredibly greedy.

Builders are greedy- they are making fortunes from new housing estates and standards are shocking. Governments are handing them billions of public money from first-time buyers ISAs. Large engineering construction companies are raking in billions from government contracts for infrastructure projects.

Energy companies and water companies have been allowed to make hundreds of billions in the last 15 years from increased charges, public monies and under-investment in infrastructure.

Public services and small businesses can not afford to increase salaries to keep up with these costs. It is not viable to keep lining the pockets of these people

They need to accept much smaller profits- captalism is out of control.

@WhitegreeNcandle have things got better for farmers with supermarket contracts?

I had heard previously that the supermarkets put really unfair pressure on farmers to sell their produce at below-cost prices - taking advantage of their buying monopoly.

My impression was that this was the biggest thing we should pressure supermarkets over, not their cost to shoppers (which we know is much lower than in most countries)

Glad to know if that's got better!

agree they also terrible for anyone with an egg or dairy allergy. you can't even get dairy free yoghurts 🤷‍♀️