The Supermarket Sausage Mystery (That My Oxbridge-Bound Kid Solved in Seconds)

[HelloandThankU]

The other day in the supermarket, I spotted something bizarre: a 12-pack and an 8-pack of the exact same sausages, both priced identical. Naturally, you’d grab the 12-pack, right? Everyone else was doing just that. I kept wondering why on earth they’d cost the same, and felt a bit sorry for the 8-packs just sitting there going to waste.

But when I got home and mentioned it, my youngest—who is currently being encouraged to apply for Oxford and Cambridge next year—solved my sausage mystery in a matter of seconds. Am I just being a bit thick?

Is it a weight difference?
I can't see the weights from the photo

But they're not the same. They're 8 sausages and 12 chipolatas. Chipolatas are skinner than sausages. I would assume the overall weight is the same.

Did you compare with the same weight of pork sausage meat (if available)?

Chipolatas are smaller, there's nothing to 'work out'. You can literally see that they are.

They are not the same sausages. One is an 8 pack of “thick” sausages and the other is a 12 pack of chipolata “thin” sausages. I can’t see the weight but I’d guess it’s probably roughly equivalent.

Yes, you are being thick.

The 8 sausages are on offer and weigh 454g. Obviously they are larger than chipolatas.

The 12 chipolatas are not on offer and weigh 340g.

Identical ingredients. Currently, identical prices per pack.

I think mine would have worked out that one says Chipolatas and one says Sausages without too much difficulty, even though she merely went to DMU.

If your kid is being encouraged to apply for Oxford and Cambridge then the school is incompetent. Can you find a better counsellor for him/her?

Mystery solved! They were actually completely different types. Because the font and colours were identical, I didn't look closely enough.
The pork sausages were 454g, but the pork chipolatas were only 340g. I do wonder if the other shoppers made the exact same mistake as me—everyone was grabbing the chipolatas thinking they were getting a mega bargain! One woman even nabbed three packets of them. Meanwhile, I bought one packet of chipolatas myself, completely missing the fact that the standard pork sausages were actually the heavier weight!

I am so bored of AI written posts. If you’re going to just copy and paste at least use a less immediately recognisable model

Yeah... it really wasn't "a mystery"... 🙄

No, I highly doubt everyone thought they were the same product and getting a bargain.

The difference between the two is literally there in big letters. Just because you didn’t see it, doesn’t mean others had the same issue.

I love that you think you needed an oxbridge candidate to figure this out 😂

Don't supermarkets have a unit price on most shelf labels now? I do most of my grocery shopping on line so I can't be sure about real shops, but the Tesco website certainly states price per 100g or similar as well as price for the full item for ease of comparison. But in all honesty, this is basic primary school level arithmetic OP, not a complex problem to solve.

Yes they do, and these weren't different, though you can't really make out the price per kg on the shelf listing because of how the reflections are.

Your child is not ‘Oxbridge-bound’ - they’re just being encouraged to apply. As impressive as that is, it’s not relevant to your post and just seems needlessly clickbait-y and actually quite embarrassing.

Is being able to solve a ChatGPT riddle the new Oxbridge benchmark?

I’d expect anyone who has learned to read English could have worked out this “mystery”.

Did you just want to brag that your child is applying for Oxbridge?

I think the new benchmark is having a reading age of 7/8! Oh, how our mighty institutions have fallen.

I once watched a reality show, where they were helping families to save on their food shops. I couldn't quite believe how many of them were incapable of working out which packs were the better value, even when the per-unit price was written on the shelf. So I wasted a couple of hours in the big Sainsbury's, looking at what shoppers chose. Yup, most went for the big "OFFER" signs even when they weren't a good offer.

They didn't understand percentages, either, but I already knew that few people do.

The kid really is oxford/Cambridge material, they are gonna go far in life

This. You don't apply for both.

This sort of mystery usually requires the combined efforts of the 'Famous Five' to solve, so you are fortunate to have your own budding Sherlock Holmes to help unravel life's many enigmas.👌

They’re obviously different sausages. One pack thick ones like us non-oxbridge-bound folk; the other skinny chipolatas. It’s not difficult.

This made me laugh out loud.