Supermarket prices

[Fifichef]

Ever felt that you're being taken for a ride?? Ever since English strawberries have come into the supermarkets they have been priced at between £1.90 and £1.99 per punnet and this is supposed to be at half price! What a joke - would anybody ever pay double that anyway - up to £4. We've had a few weeks of wonderful warm sunshine - the ideal growing weather for strawberries. I would really like to know why - 1.The price has not come down? 2.How much the grower gets per punnet? and 3 why are they now sold by 400g weight and not 450g as was the norm previously? Even if the price hasn't gone up from last year, the weight has been reduced!! This is just one instance of cunning supermarket ways!!

I totally agree. Strawberries and raspberries are always expensive in the supermarkets. £4 for about 10-15 berries, a total rip off.

I have a pot on my patio with loads of strawberries at the moment for this very reason.

I hate supermarkets and their marketing and cunning tricks.

You can bet the producers see bugger all of it too. If you can get to one farmers markets are better for stuff like strawbs. They are cheap as direct from grower, who by now has loads and needs to shift them! Plus probaly fresher.

Supermarkets are evil.

I completely understand that for most people the supermarket is the most convenient way to shop. I only wish they would realise that they are probably paying alot more for their fresh produce. Both my local butcher and greengrocer are a lot cheaper and I know that most of the food hasn't been driven for miles around the country.

i noticed this the other day....and they want us to buy english!!

Evil indeed...

I've never seen one of these £4 punnets in the supermarket and it's clearly just another one of their annoying tricks.

Our local farm shop has them for £1.50 for a huge punnet. And gorgeous they are too. And when I feel that's too steep I send DH to the pick your own with a couple of old ice cream tubs.

My eighteen month old has developed a strawberry problem. She needs about three tonnes a day to satisfy her urges so we have to score then cheap. We tried taking her to the pick your own but she was frankly uncontrollable!

pick your own.....thanks for reminding me!! i NEED to take the dc to do that,its a prt of childhood i have happy memories of

An FYI on supermarket pricing. By law they have had to sell the goods at the original price for at least a week. Outside of the English season (March/April), glasshouse-grown Spanish strawberries were selling for £4+ for a small punnet. And so when they show £4 £1.99 it's technically correct even if it's not saying very much.

450g punnets are a hangover from 1lb punnets (454g). 400g is the industry standard. And retailers typically make between 35% and 45% profit on retail prices. The rest is returned to the producer and from that they have to pay for transport, packaging, wages etc.

I understand all that you are saying Chil1234 but my beef is that they've got too b!!!!! expensive - such a small amount for too much money! Supermarkets are devious beyond belief - it's no excuse to say that the size of the unit has decreased so much (for an identical price) in changing from imperial to metric.

It's not just the size of the pack that has changed. A lot of things cost more these days that influence the cost of food. Fuel, packaging, wages (fresh produce is very labour intensive). The supplier has to factor all of these in, add on their profit, and supermarkets know that if they charge £2.09 for a product they will sell considerably fewer than if they charge £1.99. So changing the size of the pack is often a better option from a marketing standpoint than sticking the price up.

Have a look at oranges next time. You'll often find that the price-point stays the same but the number of pieces & size of fruit in the net changes. 5 larger ones or 6 smaller ones.

If you've got a farm shop selling locally produced strawberries then they should always be a better price. They haven't had to pay for transport or packaging and there is no retailer margin on top. If you find a farm shop selling strawberries for the same price as a supermarket (and some do) then that's the real rip-off.