Food is not expensive

[ragandbonewoman]

That is it really. I suppose I’m curious as to whether people agree or disagree with me. This follows a conversation I’ve just had with a friend where we disagreed on this point, but it’s something I’ve really noticed as things (life, not just food) have become more expensive. Lots and lots of people complaining that food is “so expensive” We are actually in the fortunate position of being able to spend less than the majority of the rest of the world (relative to our income) to follow a healthy diet.

Yes food has gone up. But (and I admit this is an anecdotal observation) food waste is prolific. I think we need to change our outlook. We should be prepared to pay more, especially for meat, to ensure that suppliers, farmers, animal welfare, are all getting a fair deal. I’ve always found it ridiculous that you can buy a whole chicken for £5! How?! And then people readily admit they throw half of it away.

Is this unreasonable? Food is important. People on the absolute breadline might have little choice, but for those that can take a little slack from elsewhere, they should. And stop complaining that you can’t get a tin of beans for 9p anymore! Stop throwing food in the bin because you feel like eating something else. Or AIBU?

I don't think people waste that much do they?? Our food waste is the odd end of bread loaves and veg peelings.

£5 for a chicken is crazy. How much of that £5 is profit and what has that bird been fed and where has it been kept???

Food isn't expensive if you know how you cook.

I use ocado and spend about £110 a week for 5 of us and we eat healthily.

I think more people should take up the challenge of having a week eating home cooked meals with no processed preprepared meals, including dessert!

I think everyone should eat less meat. There really is no need to eat it every single day

The difference is that housing and other costs like childcare and utilities are far more here, so people have less to spend on food than Europeans.

I always think that wherever you live, you get stung with higher costs of some things, while other stuff is cheaper. In our case, everything is high except for food and that is rapidly catching up to a lot of places. When I began holidaying in Europe 20 years ago I was horrified by the cost of food. The last couple of years it’s really not that much more expensive.

The cost of food has definitively gone up, but I still don’t feel it’s obscenely expensive.

I spend £500 a month, sometimes more but generally around that. DH and I earn £4K a month between us. I think it’s a fair percentage of our salary for quality food. Food is important, I want to pay what’s fair so everyone in that chain gets a fair deal. I’m not perfect, I can’t afford free range meat, but try to only eat meat twice a week, and will never throw any meat leftovers away

Ah that's a similar amount to what we spend but we earn a lot less than you. Possibly why it seems more? We are struggling and the high cost of food is where it's gone up for us.

I think it doesn't matter though if you are used to it being cheap and now your shop has gone up by 20% or whatever, you aren't going to go oh well at least it's cheaper than Germany.

I'm in Ireland and the prices in UK supermarkets always seemed really cheap to me, they probably still would but that's neither here nor there to someone in the UK whose salary hasnt gone up and they have a family to feed.

Where am I supposed to shop? As someone who can, and does cook. The vast majority of my meals are cooked from scratch.

@TeenLifeMum I have cows in my back garden don't you?!

Food is very cheap in UK compared to Europe

But other things are cheaper which is the point...

to be fair, I would love that but dh vetoed it 😂

Food isn’t a fixed cost like housing and bills, the food budget is taken out of what’s left. When bills have gone up and wages haven’t, it’s the discretionary spending budget which gets smaller. Add increasing food prices and that limited budget goes less far month by month. When people have already dropped off luxuries, new clothes, salmon and naice ham, already shop in Aldi, there comes a point where there’s few further economies to make. That’s why the food feels expensive because you can’t afford the basket or trolley you used to buy

A few years ago food was unrealistically cheap. Now it's not, and the increase wasn't gradual but more or less immediate. Couple that with stagnant salaries for the most part, and the result is a higher proportion of income being spent on food.

I don't know how to solve this. I suppose mindful buying is one way, but I confess to being in a daze sometimes in the supermarket. They are out to get you with their bread at the door and other subtle marketing! I started to make a list and stick to it. I live alone so I don't have the worry of feeding a family, but I have noticed prices creep up and up.

Some have said that using online shopping and delivery is one way to prevent impulse buying in store. But I'm not so sure about that. It is very handy if time poor, but often the substitutions are disappointing.

Anyway, these are my staples,

eggs, cheese, fish (don't eat meat often if at all)
Veg preferably frozen except for carotts and broccoli.
Frozen mash - saves on energy boiling the damn things and they are v. good
Fruit
I make my own seeded wholemeal bread, so I need flour now and then.
Butter. The real stuff.
Soya milk.
Oats, seeds, Greek yogurt, coffee, tea.
And the usual cleaning stuff/soap.

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but that's the main shopping list. Gone up by a huge chunk in a few months.

I'm nearly 60. Me and my friends often talk about how we could do a simple shop on our family allowance (now child benefit). It might have been chips, egg, beans or chips, fishfingers, peas, but we could tide our food cupboards over. Now we couldn't go to Heron/Farmfoods and do the equivalent. Soup and bread isn't cheap. I can remember my friend, who was skint getting her FA on a Monday and kitting her primary aged child out with one set of uniform from Woolworths/Ethel Austins until she got paid Income Suport that week. We can't do the equivalent. It's everything together. Also the people struggling aren't the ones having a high amount of food waste.

Had a medium chicken delivered yesterday from Ocado for £4.48.

Compared to the rest of the world, the average UK citizen spends less on food as a percentage of their total income than nearly every other country. This is a fact, not a conjecture or debating point.

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-consumer-expenditure-spent-on-food?mapSelect=~GBR

Industrialisation and retail competition have driven food prices down in the UK. But other costs have risen (housing) or have been introduced and are now deemed essential (internet, media, electronic goods) and so on, so:

"...the proportion of total expenditure on housing has doubled during the last 60 years, from 9% to 18%. On the other hand, the proportion of total spending that went on food has halved (33% to 16%), as has the proportion on clothing (10% to 5%)"

Source: ONS, https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2018/01/18/celebrating-60-years-of-family-spending/

Objectively, we do have a low-cost food economy, because we are proportionally richer than the rest of the world, and so we spend proportionally less on food per capita.

This obviously doesn't mean that everyone in the UK can afford food, but it does mean that on average over 90% of expenditure is on non-food items (housing, cars, etc.), so most people can afford to eat - and eat well - if they choose to.

Subjectively, of course, some people do feel squeezed. But, any MN follower will know that some people feel 'squeezed' on 150K p.a., when others are coping just fine on 36K p.a. (the median household income in the UK).

So, it's a subjective feeling which may or may not relate to real, material circumstances, alongside personal expectations and perhaps an assumption that you will do better than your parents - no longer true for the middle classes.

So, yes, food is relatively speaking less expensive than it was in the past, as a proportion of household income. But, subjectively, for some, it just feels more expensive, as do many other things.

Me and my friends often talk about how we could do a simple shop on our family allowance (now child benefit)

It used to be universal back then didn't it?

Food, compared to the cost of production, is ridiculously cheap. It's hugely subsidised in the UK.

Compared to where to was 5 years ago it is of course more costly.

Everything is subsidised in this country though, including employment through WTC. The answer is higher taxes but noone wants to hear that.

The answer is higher taxes but noone wants to hear that.

Again because so much income goes on housing it's harder for people to pay higher taxes.

I think food feels expensive in comparison to what it was 4 pints of milk was £1 now £1.50 ish, I used to get 750g lean mince for £5 now it’s £7 something. My wage has gone up by pennies so I have to work longer / harder comparatively.

It is still cheap in comparison to lots of countries, how we can pay someone to grow, clean, sort and bag 1.5 kilos of carrots and sell at a profit for 70p a bag amazes me.

"This obviously doesn't mean that everyone in the UK can afford food, but it does mean that on average over 90% of expenditure is on non-food items (housing, cars, etc.), so most people can afford to eat - and eat well - if they choose to."

So cheaper housing is available? The Local housing allowance hasn't plunged people into poverty? We have good public transport so cars are a choice? People can't afford food because there are other pressing essentials.

I raised an eyebrow when reading that you cannot afford free range meat, on your combined wages per month. Did you mean to say, that you don't prioritise buying free range meat?

Yes, but we could also feed ourselves on it. Now we couldn't. Things have changed for the worse, even shopping in the Heron etc.

The thing with food is that it's a similar amount per person to do a grocery shop no matter how much you earn. Obviously more if you only shop in Waitrose or M&S, but the baseline is fairly similar. So food has gone up but wages haven't, which means it's a big percentage of some people's expenses with no real way for most people to cut it. I can cut out takeaways and eating out, but I can't much cut the groceries.