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???

I'm trying to grow as much fruit and veg as possible. Also cooking from scratch more. I want to find around 5-10 dinner recipes that we all love that are easy to prepare and use seasonal foods.

I'm going to make more soups as they are so easy and healthy.

And who asked you?

Interesting! Oh well, I guess they have to make a profit, just sorry it's off us. I don't understand people saying that food has been subsidised for years and is now evening out. I'm sure supermarkets must have made a huge profit during covid.

I wonder if our changed habits have made it harder to carve out the food budget? I do think that's where people are feeling it.

I remember in the 70s my mother worked as a cook and her weekly wage was £35. Our weekly supermarket shop was also £35 for two adults, two older teenagers and a tween. That would have been late 70s.

I don't think she worked f/t and would have been on nmw (which didn't exist) so £2-3ph?

It was a huge, full shopping trolley and fed all five of us three meals a day. Including all toiletries and household cleaning stuff.

What have you managed to grow and how many meals have you got in the repertoire so far.

Must say I'm so very desperately sick of spag bol.

Looked at pricing uk some Christmas stuff yesterday: pretty eye watering!! Hot chocolate knew would be up on last year,but 30-40% is a lot when you see it written down. Smoked salmon holding up ok. God knows what the lot will cost by Christmas

That's interesting @Dogaredabomb
NMW at 20hrs now would be £250 a week ish

I cant imagine anyone on NMW spending that level of income on food now.
I think people forget how expensive food was in the 1970s

Strange isn't it! There would have been no alcohol and three meals a day for five from that, including packed lunches, flasks of soup or tea for Dad's night shifts. The trolley was completely full to overflowing.

I just wouldn't buy that volume of stuff now. And I don't think there were basic groceries ie own brand back then. No microwave would have influenced things but we did have a massive chest freezer.

Plenty of tomatoes and cucumbers. Lettuce. Lots of leeks and potatoes. Sprouts. Onions. Beetroot. Courgette. Chard.

Love a slow cooker casserole with dumplings. Homemade pizza. A savoury crumble (mince with cheesy crumble). Toad in the hole and veg. I'm a simple soul😜

In those days the only takeaway,away was fish and chips, usually all lunches were eaten at home or packed lunch.

Probably everything from food to batteries pet food etc was done there
People were much thinner -it cant all been food

What about making meatballs and having them in a sub/baguette? Spaghetti with tomato sauce? Mince and baked potato, cottage pie? Minestrone?

Sorry if I misunderstood.

My weekend and holiday job in the early 70s was for Tesco. Either on the meat deli counter or the checkout. People ate well. I worked flat out all day.

A normal shop would be bacon weighed and wrapped. Say six rashers of collar bacon and a dozen rashers of streaky. Black pudding rings, dozen eggs, eight sausages, that was weekend breakfast.

Then at the other end of the counter, you'd buy brawn, ham, faggots,. A nice wedge of cheddar, Lancashire , Wensleydale cut with a wire gadget. Gala pie, four slices. cream cheese scooped into a cardboard pot with a lid and weighed Ditto Coleslaw, Russian salad, potato salad.

I'd go on the tills at relief time, rolling lunches.

Trolleys piled high, bread either white or hovis four loaves minimum. Lots of apples and bananas. Plenty of potatoes, cabbage, carrots,

Stewing steak, mince, braising steak, breast and neck of lamb, brisket, joint of pork

Lots of jams and marmalades, tinned fruit. Blancmange, packets of jelly.

But rents were low, mortgages and energy reasonable, council tax steady. One car per family.

Oh I should have said,I was alive in the 1970s I remember it well !
We got most of our food locally, butcher, baker, greengrocer.
I think more people eat out now was my point .
I've just compared today's prices against 1970s and it's about the same.

We rarely ate out as a family. In the summer we'd go down to the river, my father would hire a rowing boat and we'd go up and down the river. Then it was a lemonade and an ice-cream on the river bank while parents would have a drink, a pint and a gin and tonic for parents. I don't think we ever had a fish supper, there wasn't one locally. I remember going out for a meal with my parents when my GCSE results came through. I felt very grown up

@justasking111 are you from an Enid Blyton novel? Sounds rather lovely to me.

Reading this thread, it strikes me that we have forgotten the simple stuff. Be that a boat ride, or a baked potato for tea. That cakes are meant as treats. Maybe it's just me, but it's giving me cause for reflection.

Ah the bakery in town, bread and cakes were as good as homemade. Their donuts perfick. I think It was called Parslows.

Enid Blyton well we all read them and did have adventures 😄

You haven't misunderstood, yes I'm in a spag bol rut. In fact a mince rut.

Oh Enid Blyton, how I longed to be Dick, or Timmy the dog.

I worked on a supermarket till in the early 80s and we'd think it noteworthy if someone had a bottle of wine in their trolley.

Looking back we ate very nutritious food all cooked absolutely from scratch. I'd lust after angel delight or tinned beans and sausages at friends' houses.

Meanwhile I was ploughing ungratefully through scotch broth followed by eve's pudding and custard.

Dad would go rogue sometimes and make curry in the garage. Whilst smoking his pipe and wearing a zip up cardigan with leather elbow patches.

The butchers in town used to make amazing pork pies, delicious and hot with the jelly running from it.

A big fan of homemade soups here as good value for money. Made a pot of lentil yesterday which cost under a quid I reckon,and which gave 6 big hearty portions. My yoghurt hasn't set properly so used it to make a sodabread to go with the soup. Again,very cheap and no waste. And no UPF.

I agree, I think nothing of having a cake, a bar of chocolate or a coke. They were all very rare treats and no way were they in the food cupboard.

Has food as entertainment become too important? I don't think we expected any more than getting fed previously. More food as fuel.

In Enid Blyton’s day food was relatively more expensive than it is today. Meals of tongue sandwiches with fruit cake for afters were likely unusual for most people even then. The picnics she described were just as much a idealised fantasy as young children going cycling and camping on their own, knocking on random farmhouse doors for food. Though puddings were a much more common element of meals. I remember when I was little potatoes were the main substance of the meal and if you were hungry you got more potato. But main meals (which included school dinners) always had pudding. Chocolate bars were rare though and one would be cut up to share between us.

Interestingly @Dogaredabomb I was at an event where henry dimbleby was talking today. He was predicting more people will move away from upf and will start caring more and more about where food comes from, who makes it etc. And i suspect that will mean more people will switch to basic meals. He talked about the importance of gut health, which when we talk about all these old fashioned recipes, they are more suited to helping our gut health than the ready meals/cakes/crap bread etc of today.

I think we are starting to realise that we need to do better, and food is fuel. It can still be a social occasion, even shopping can be interesting if we venture to our local shops.

I am realistic, my main shop is from tesco, I cant afford a full 'farm shop' shop, but i do use a local bread bakery and make a point of buying something from my local farm shop each week. Im lucky as I work on a site where both are available, but locally we have seen a big rise in people using these shops and the local farmers markets.

I know food poverty is a huge issue, but its also really fascinating to see how the tide is turning.

Ps - chilli is also good with your mince!

Our farm shop started out with a potato farmer who then started growing other vegetables he then had a stall at a few street markets on top of his wholesale business.

He took on a big unit on an industrial estate for storage. The public sought him out asking for a sack of potatoes etc. so we he opened a counter put in a till and started selling retail.

His son and family became involved. They took on another industrial unit fitted it out as a shop found other local suppliers of bakery goods, dairy, meats as well as fruit and veg and Tatws Trading was born.

Now the range is extensive, it's always busy the quality of the fruit and vegetables is so good. Potatoes last for months in the garage I just need to wash the soil off. The carrots complete with ferny tops last ages too. Whereas supermarket versions can start rotting/sprouting the same day because they've been over refrigerated in some warehouse.

I read somewhere that all the lashings of food in famous five were basically food porn because of rationing and post-war austerity. But it's fascinating to read them now and see how unprocessed the feasts and picnics are. One book has several pages of Dick lovingly ministering to a jar of homemade pickled onions. Nowadays it would be piles of crisps, chocolate bars, and beige freezer food or a pizza delivery.

OH we used to love spearing a pickled onion as kids and crunching them down. I have a sudden yearning for picalilli now 🤣

Does it have to be mince or are you open to any recipes?