What is going on with food prices??

[londongirl12]

A 500g packet of mince in Aldi is now over £5!! What on earth is going on???

Ok, let's do the maths shall we?

Tesco's annual profits most recently were £3.13bn. Sounds like an awful lot of money doesn't it. https://news.sky.com/story/profits-up-at-tesco-after-job-cuts-with-further-losses-not-ruled-out-13345570

Per day, that is £3,130,000,000 / 365 = £8,575,342.

Google tells me Tesco has 2,973 stores in the UK as of July.

£8,575,342 / 2,973 = £2,884 profit per store per day.

£2,884 profit per day, over let's say an average of 1,000 customers per day (I personally think that's too low but we'll go with it) = £2.84 profit per customer.

Let's say customers buy on average 20 items, that's 14p profit per item.

And this does NOT include profits from petrol, phone plans, insurance, and all the other services they provide.

The average profit element on any item you buy in store is literal pennies. If Tesco decided to make no profit at all, the difference in your weekly shop would be £5-£10 at most.

They make so much profit because they turn over unimaginably huge volumes of stock, not because they're price gouging.

I can almost still here my ex MIL saying things like this, “oh I managed” “oh I grew this and I grew that…we had very little left at the end of the month” “oh I went into the market every Thursday morning and bought my vegetables for the week…sometimes the veg would be cheaper if he needed rid of it” etc etc…I just wanted to scream…”YES…BUT YOU DIDN'T FUCKING WORK!!!!!” she had all bloody day to tend to a garden, make dinner and bake cakes ffs! Honestly!

And let's not forget that these huge hikes of food prices, the profit of supermarkets is going very very healthy. So a fair proportion should also be put down to greed imo as even if the war in Ukraine ended, fuel went down in price, food chain improved etc etc, they won't put the prices down.

Also TIME how is getting an allotment today supposed to fix your food bills immediately

I do think a chicken can feed at least 5 adults as we all eat way too much meat anyway - For a typical supermarket broiler chicken, you can expect roughly 1 kg of edible meat. The recommended portion size of chicken for an adult is 100–120 grams per serving. (roughly half a chicken breast) So eat less meat and bulk out with more veg, spuds etc.

All right jacks with land! Both my DS s have small flats, I gave them one tomato plant I grew, and one DS with the sunny kitchen windowsill had tomatoes for 6 months. You can keep seeds from a fresh tomato for the following year. I have a few relatives with allotments, they worked ft when they acquired them..I had a work colleague with 4 small DKs who used to take them to the allotment with her. Apparently now some councils are selling them off for housing. Surprising what you can grow in a small windowsill.

Please see my post above.

Supermarkets make huge profits because they have small markups on billions of items, not because they are inflating profits.

If they reduced their profits to nil, it would actually make little difference to the consumer.

No its not, so all other EU countries haven't got inflation cost as uk, why??
We pay more for everything now, why,??? We as a country we are taxed to death ( look at our gov) for blame,

this has nothing to do with Cc, Ukraine war, drought

So no one can ever say...walk to work (not everyone can walk), brush your teeth (not everyone has teeth), try boiling water (not everyone has a kettle), buy an airfryer (not everyone has money), listen to a podcast (not everyone can hear). Nothing is ever feasible for all.

Please could you share which online butcher you use?

Chicken was never eaten in that quantity nor meat.
That's just greed.
Bulk up the plate with roasties, Yorkshires, veg .
It's not hard

I do think a chicken can feed at least 5 adults

Can I assume you don't have teenage sons to feed....a whole chicken could feed five of me. My 17 year old Ds could quite happily eat half a chicken... probably a whole one given half a chance!

Mince used to be cheap. We used to have it in different things a couple of times a week. It's almost the same price as chicken now.
We did consider going vegetarian but actually that seems just as expensive.
Something is going to give sooner or later.

I did work ft nights,4 DKs,last house, before the downsize seaside bungalow,3 chicken, they were free,ex battery hens,21 eggs a week..

Are they? Or do you just mean the UK grocery market now has bigger companies?

They are taking the piss. Profits are up, no surprise

I’m in Ireland but I think it’s comparable to the UK in terms of food price rises. I agree to a certain extent about shopping around. I do probably 50% Lidl 50% Dunnes. But the fact of the matter is the base line of prices is up overall no matter where you shop. Own brand butter is up 50% irregardless of the shop as are potatoes, wheat based products and stuff like beef, coffee and chocolate. I buy the Dunnes simply better mince beef twin pack. Last year it was €5.99. It’s now €8.29. And Lidl/Aldi are the same. Yes there’s loads of factors like the Ukraine war, global warming etc but also there’s just straight forward gouging by the retailers. I’ve stopped being brand/item loyal. Before I’d buy a specific deo for eg. Now I buy what’s on offer. It’s the only way to stop my weekly shop spiralling out of control

They do.

@Bagsintheboot you are right Supermarkets usually run on pretty slim profit margins — around 1.8% last year, based on reports from the CMA. That’s lower than it used to be, and they’re mostly trying to improve it by cutting costs rather than raising prices. Or thats what they report anyway.
For fresh meat like chicken, the typical markup is about 100%. So if it costs them £2.50 per kilo wholesale, it’ll probably be sold at around £5 per kilo. Prepped or marinated versions obviously tend to be more expensive because of the added value.
Packaged goods — especially long shelf-life or branded items — can have much higher markups, sometimes 300–500%. That’s why even when something’s heavily discounted near its expiry date, they’re often still making a profit.
Also worth mentioning: supermarkets often use loss leaders — products they sell at or below cost to get people through the door. Things like, milk, or bread are common examples. They lose money on those but make it back on everything else in your trolley.

UK supermarket profit margins are significantly below those in the early 2010s and lower than pre-Covid,

12 large eggs cost £2.89 in Aldi. I think that’s good value.

It won’t be a popular view, I know, but compared to many other countries, we’ve become used to quite low food prices in the UK.

Call it what you like. Protein makes up a large part of our diet and it always has been. I’m not going to scrimp a chicken between 5 people because some sting on mumsnet thinks we’re greedy. One chicken between 6 people is just miserly

To all those saying get an allotment. I had one. You have to really love doing it or it becomes a massive fucking chore. I was on the waiting list for 5 years. The photo is the day we got it. Me and my DH worked full time. It took six months of very physical work to get it anywhere near being plantable. It took every minute of spare time rain and shine. The initial cost of seeds and tools (even second hand and swapping where we could) far exceeded anything I would spend on fruit and veg. It was bloody hard work. After spending all the year trying to grow plants, keep them alive and stop them being eaten you then have to give them away or preserve them. It is great exercise but not the answer to high food costs.

I thought same

Yet you proceeded telling me to get an allotment. It's quite ironic as I cannot bend my knee these days and I'm busy all days 😁
But thank you all the same!