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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

Price of formula

39 replies

TwoWeeSausages · 18/05/2011 16:50

Has anyone else noticed that price of formula has went up significantly in the past couple of weeks?

Normally I pay around £7.50ish for a 900gm tin but went to buy one today and I was charged £8.99!

This is quite a jump in price.

I questioned the store about the price and was told that they have no control over this.

When DS1 was a baby, formula was around £7 a tin and this was 8yrs ago.

OP posts:

misdee · 19/05/2011 16:40

nooooooo :(

whats the price of c+g stage 1 now? i bought two tubs last week for £7.55 each which was high enouh, how can they increase it more? used to be about £5 when i bought it for ded1

bloody useless boobs this time round :(

misdee · 19/05/2011 16:43

still £7.55 on sainsburys website

OhYeahOhRight · 19/05/2011 17:13

Sorry about double posting, my phone is apparently rubbish. I'd love to have bf and always feel guilty about not having tried harder. Being screwed over by ff companies in this way just makes me more determined to bf next time. Also, I note that the formula is much more expensive in my local tesco than it is online, which is particularly shitty as we live in a poor area with probably high ff rates.

cobweb1979 · 19/05/2011 18:24

Just another kick in the teeth for those of us who REALLY wanted to BF :(

tiktok · 19/05/2011 18:58

Veronica, you're dead right about these marketing tactics.

Ready to feed formula is about to have a huge push in the UK - watch for it being everywhere from this summer on.

One way to make it attractive to mothers is to lessen the differential between the cost of powder and the cost of RTF. This seems to be done by raising the price of the powder, rather than lowering the price of RTF.

wigglesrock · 19/05/2011 20:03

Got e-mail back earlier, am off to buy out Sainsburys

Dear Mrs Wiggles,

Thank you for contacting the SMA Careline regarding the price of SMA products.

The price on shelf is always decided by the individual retailer. As of 3rd May 2011, Pfizer Nutrition has introduced a price increase on certain products to trade customers. This is to reflect investment in innovation and product development to advance the quality of formulations within our SMA Advanced Gold System range of products. We have also invested in an improved packaging design incorporating new features such as an easy peel foil and a handy scoop levelling bar.

In addition, key ingredients within our formulas have experienced significant increases in cost, reflecting global component price increases. Pfizer Nutrition works hard to provide excellent quality products at an affordable cost.
Pfizer Nutrition is focused on advancing the nutritional quality of its products. We are confident that SMA First Infant Milk with its improved fat blend and protein quality reflects up to date scientific research and provides complete nutrition for babies who are not breastfed.

We hope you understand that while we try and absorb costs increases as much as possible, our constant investment in product and packaging improvement and rising costs of goods and services will sometimes make these unavoidable. Pfizer Nutrition is committed to provide excellent quality products at an affordable cost.

I hope you find this information suitable for your needs but should you have any further questions please feel free to contact the SMA Careline again.

organiccarrotcake · 19/05/2011 22:52

tiktok what's going on with the RTF promotion then? Is it because of the "new" guidelines for making up powder formula?

tiktok · 20/05/2011 09:06

I imagine they have now got the manufacturing capacity to make more RTF than they used to, and because the mark-up on RTF is probably huge, they are now in the biz of being able to make loadsamoney on it.

If a manufacturer managed to produce a formula that was consistently low priced, and which met all the requirements, and managed to convince consumers that there was no difference in quality between their low-priced product and the others, and they made a genuine pledge to market it ethically, then I think they would be in business.

The big problem would be getting over the idea that low price = poor quality. When you buy 'Basics' products in the supermarket, you expect just that - basic quality. But in reality, any formula would by international and national law have to meet the standards (which is why there is so little real difference between any of the brands we have now).

Emandwilliam · 20/05/2011 10:11

Hipp organic stage 1 is £6.50 in my boots- by far the cheapest formula a could find.

Cattleprod · 20/05/2011 10:22

nov75 does your DH have any insider information on if there is any way that the public can buy directly from his company? I guess the £3 a tin is a staff discount but I'm sure there are plenty of people who would buy 25 or 50 tins at once if it meant saving a couple of quid per tin.

I buy a lot of food from a wholesaler as I have a business account with them, but their formula milk is actually more expensive than the supermarket.

Gnome134 · 29/05/2011 10:31

I also noticed the big price increase of SMA hungry baby milk from £7.64 to £8.99 a tin in the space of a week.
This is obviously annoying - particularly as the manufacturers are making plenty of profit (and I am annoyed if we are paying for SMA's new labeling and an extra bit of plastic to scrape the top of the scoop of powder)- but it does need to be put in perspective.

Each tin contains 214 scoops (according to the labeling). At the cheaper price this works out at 3.5p per scoop, and at the new price it is 3.7p per scoop. For a 6oz bottle this is just over 1p more a feed. Not actually all that significant in the grand scheme of things. (See other posts about worst buys and how much money we waste on useless baby things!) We worked this out when getting irritated at the odd oz left at the end of a bottle, and realised it is not really all that much money to feed a baby for a week.
Also I agree the price when I had my other children in 2001 and 2004 the price was around £7 a tin then, so it is just a big jump all at once rather than 10p here and there over the years.

stressheaderic · 29/05/2011 10:46

Where I live, Aptamil is thought to be the 'poshest' of the milks, then SMA, and finally C&G is looked upon as a bit downmarket. HAven't got a baldy clue where these ideas come from, as, as we all know, they are basically the same thing.

I was also horrified when Aptamil jumped up to £8.99 recently, this was the reason I put my DD onto cows at precisely 12 months rather than waiting any longer.

I hope Ready to Feed doesn't take over from formula - DD wouldn't take it, she could tell it was a different consistency (it appears thinner as it is blended down by machine, not hand, I assume?)

PeterSpanswick · 29/05/2011 11:15

This is probably a really stupid question but why don't you earn Boots points on formula? Never noticed whether or not you do in Tesco/Sainsbury's e.t.c. Is it tied in to the no promotion rules?

theborrower · 29/05/2011 12:02

peterspanswick Yeah, I think the 'no points' thing is tied into the no promotion deal. Also, on the Boots website you can get free delivery if you spend over £x, but not if it includes infant formula. I don't know if this applies to whatever amount you spend, but I thought that was unfair. I wanted to do a big bulk shop when we had all the snow, but thought it was unfair that I'd have to pay the delivery charge when it would otherwise have been free...

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