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Food prices

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Mcr Warrior

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I'm not certain but I think there's actually more of them east of the Pennies than west.
Ta. Think "Quality Save" only have twenty or so outlets. Does look confusingly similar to "Home Bargains" as well as the other discount retailer "B&M Stores" who own a subsidiary frozen foods retailing company "Heron Foods" (whose products range is often cheaper than at Iceland).
 
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py_megapixel

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Ta. Think "Quality Save" only have twenty or so outlets.
Yes, that's right according to their website. There's more than I realised in the Manchester area so I was probably incorrect with my previous statement about where they are located, though there are still a few in the east.

Does look confusingly similar to "Home Bargains" as well as the other discount retailer "B&M Stores" who own a subsidiary frozen foods retailing company "Heron Foods" (whose products range is often cheaper than at Iceland).
The cheapest for most everyday grocery products seems to not be the places that position themselves as discount variety retailers, but actually the German-type supermarkets, Aldi and Lidl. There is of course the caveat that you don't get household name brands, but the own brands are almost always decent enough and sometimes better than the pricier alternative.

The hallmark of a discount retailer like Home Bargains or B&M appears to be a layout which forces you to walk all the way round most or all of the aisles to get out. Aldi and Lidl do this too, but to a lesser extent.
 

Typhoon

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The hallmark of a discount retailer like Home Bargains or B&M appears to be a layout which forces you to walk all the way round most or all of the aisles to get out.
I am surprised at that. One of the things I like about Home Bargains is that I don't have to do that. Both of the one's I use have a break half way down each aisle so I can avoid going to the back of the store at all. The only half-aisle I have to use is the cosmetics/ medical section, I can ignore toys/ stationery/ kitchenware/ gardening/ pet supplies/ DIY completely.

What I do find is that, while food prices there don't necessarily go up, they cease to stock certain items or stock a different 'brand' (including ones you may never have heard of). Not a moan, it is what it is. They won't stock everything (locally, limited fruit and veg and bread, only one has a frozen food section and that has limited choice) but, if money is tight, certainly worth a look to see what they have, and buy what they haven't elsewhere.
 

Snow1964

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The hallmark of a discount retailer like Home Bargains or B&M appears to be a layout which forces you to walk all the way round most or all of the aisles to get out. Aldi and Lidl do this too, but to a lesser extent.

Aldi and Lidl seem to have odd number of aisles (usually 5) so forced to do one of them twice, or skip an aisle. They also put their special offer (middle aisle) at furthest end to checkouts to draw you in.

Some of the budget stores are not that cheap, or more specifically seem to sell special small size packaging that is worse value than the mainline supermarkets. So for example their £1 packet of biscuits has 11 when it used to be 15 in a packet. I recently bought some toilet roll where the middle cardboard tube was about cm bigger diameter so presumably missing about 40 sheets per roll.
 

johnnychips

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For anyone here wanting food at awesome prices I'd recommend Home Bargains!! Cheapest place out for many branded items. Don't go rip off Asda, Tesco, Iceland, Poundland etc. We get most of our sweets, biscuits, crisps, toiletries and many grocery items from here. Go and check it out!! Decent date life's too.
I would totally agree with this. It’s the last place I’ve found Domestos bleach for £1 and cooking oil for £2 a litre.
 

DannyMich2018

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I would totally agree with this. It’s the last place I’ve found Domestos bleach for £1 and cooking oil for £2 a litre.
It's just a shame not all places have one. Also best to shop around if possible- I've seen Yorkshire Tea 240 bags £5.15 in Asda, £6.30 Sainsbury's and a rip off £7.50 in Morrisons! Quite a difference that is!
 

Typhoon

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It's just a shame not all places have one. Also best to shop around if possible- I've seen Yorkshire Tea 240 bags £5.15 in Asda, £6.30 Sainsbury's and a rip off £7.50 in Morrisons! Quite a difference that is!
Annoyingly, Tesco don't seem to sell 240 anymore, 210 instead (£4.49 - price matched with Aldi). This is about the same as Asda but I had to do some mental arithmetic to do that!
 

Baxenden Bank

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It's just a shame not all places have one. Also best to shop around if possible- I've seen Yorkshire Tea 240 bags £5.15 in Asda, £6.30 Sainsbury's and a rip off £7.50 in Morrisons! Quite a difference that is!
There are retail people on here who would explain it better but my feeling is that each supermarket chain has lines which it keeps at super-low/comparison prices and then other lines where they are super-high to recoup the money. I had noticed 240 Yorkshire Tea bags at that price in Morrisons. I think that £7.50 is probably the standard price as that was the price in the Co-op in Knighton before the pamdemic. I remember thinking then 'how much'! [several exclamation marks actually :lol:]

Some people simply don't look at the prices, some can afford to pay whatever, some can't be bothered shopping around even when skint and then you get the most unfortunate cases - people that live in a small town with no, or just the one main supermarket, and corner-shop style chains. It's a fair distance from Knighton to the next town, the shops there have a captive market, unless you go for home delivery from the next town or Amazon. One of the disadvantages of living in a rural area.
 

malc-c

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Stevenage has two Sainsbury's, two Tesco's, a large ASDA, an Aldi, with a new Morrisons to be built later this year. It also has smaller supermarkets dotted around all the community areas, from co-ops to independents. B&M and a huge Costco are also available in the outskirts of the town on two retail parks. But I don't have the time to visit them all to get the best price for a pack of biscuits or loaf of bread. With petrol prices so high and a car that when on cold start returns single miles to the gallon, any saving made would be wiped out travelling form one side of town to the other !
 

Ediswan

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Stevenage has two Sainsbury's, two Tesco's, a large ASDA, an Aldi, with a new Morrisons to be built later this year. It also has smaller supermarkets dotted around all the community areas, from co-ops to independents. B&M and a huge Costco are also available in the outskirts of the town on two retail parks.
Plus the new M&S.
 

ChrisC

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Some of the budget stores are not that cheap, or more specifically seem to sell special small size packaging that is worse value than the mainline supermarkets. So for example their £1 packet of biscuits has 11 when it used to be 15 in a packet. I recently bought some toilet roll where the middle cardboard tube was about cm bigger diameter so presumably missing about 40 sheets per roll.
I think it often depends upon what you are comparing things with and is it like with like. The general opinion seems to be that the more upmarket supermarkets like Waitrose and M&S are expensive. I regularly shop in these stores but I tend to mainly buy their own brand items and these are often very good quality at a much lower price than branded items. The discount stores like Home Bargains and B&M are generally much cheaper for branded items than most large supermarkets but are still often more expensive than own brands. I went in B&M last week and was quite surprised how much more expensive well known brands of items like breakfast cereals, biscuits, baked beans and most tinned food were in comparison to what I usually pay in Waitrose for their own brand.
 

birchesgreen

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I do my mum's shopping every week, i use the price of single cream as a barometer of food prices (same brand and same supermarket), its gone up from 80p late last year to 1.50 today.

Price in Lidl i saw this morning, 89p. Hmm...
 

takno

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I do my mum's shopping every week, i use the price of single cream as a barometer of food prices (same brand and same supermarket), its gone up from 80p late last year to 1.50 today.

Price in Lidl i saw this morning, 89p. Hmm...
Things would have to have got pretty bad before I'd be willing to trade down to single cream. You'll be suggesting Elmlea next!
 

Busaholic

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The hallmark of a discount retailer like Home Bargains or B&M appears to be a layout which forces you to walk all the way round most or all of the aisles to get out. Aldi and Lidl do this too, but to a lesser extent.
As a disabled walker, this is why I won't shop at these stores. The lack of WCs also comes into play. Can't comment on Aldi as I've never been in one.
 

py_megapixel

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As a disabled walker, this is why I won't shop at these stores. The lack of WCs also comes into play. Can't comment on Aldi as I've never been in one.
Aldi and Lidl's new build stores have had customer toilets for quite a while, but they are missing from my local ones which are quite a number of years older (I'm not aware of their exact opening dates).

For a large supermarket shop, assuming you aren't opting for home delivery (which you may well be) - you are likely to find them better than the conventional supermarkets if you have difficulty walking. This is simply because they have a substantially smaller footprint and everything is pretty much guaranteed to be in the same place no matter which one you visit one of the two chains (though there are variations between Aldi and Lidl) so you shouldn't need to walk around looking for things.

You have to walk through the first bit of the fruit & veg section but then you can pretty much go where you like.
 

miklcct

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May I ask why I can't find cheap dumplings in UK supermarkets? There are plenty of them in both Hong Kong and Lithuania, that for example, in Hong Kong, I can buy supermarket-branded 1.5 kg at about HK$50 (~£5) and in Lithuania, I can buy 1 kg at about 1€ (~£0.86).

Steamed dumplings were one of my favourite quick and cheap breakfast in the past which I can just put about 400 g of dumplings in the steam rack and they will be ready in 10-20 minutes. Another favourite for me was sushi, where sushi takeaways in Hong Kong have them at HK$3 per piece, which I can buy in the evening, put it in a refrigerator and have 18-24 pieces for a quick breakfast faster than having fast food (and healthier than American fast food) - best for me when time is tight. However, those in this country is much more expensive that I can't afford them for day-to-day breakfast.

What's your favourite fast and cheap breakfast?
 

birchesgreen

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Because Chinese dumplings are not something most British people eat hence why you won't find them in most supermarkets, you'll need to go to a specialist one. We have a Wing Yip nearby so can get them quite easy.
 

takno

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May I ask why I can't find cheap dumplings in UK supermarkets? There are plenty of them in both Hong Kong and Lithuania, that for example, in Hong Kong, I can buy supermarket-branded 1.5 kg at about HK$50 (~£5) and in Lithuania, I can buy 1 kg at about 1€ (~£0.86).

Steamed dumplings were one of my favourite quick and cheap breakfast in the past which I can just put about 400 g of dumplings in the steam rack and they will be ready in 10-20 minutes. Another favourite for me was sushi, where sushi takeaways in Hong Kong have them at HK$3 per piece, which I can buy in the evening, put it in a refrigerator and have 18-24 pieces for a quick breakfast faster than having fast food (and healthier than American fast food) - best for me when time is tight. However, those in this country is much more expensive that I can't afford them for day-to-day breakfast.

What's your favourite fast and cheap breakfast?
Might be worth looking in the polish or eastern European sections in bigger supermarkets. Sainsbury's certainly have Polish pierogi which will do a job
 

philthetube

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I do my mum's shopping every week, i use the price of single cream as a barometer of food prices (same brand and same supermarket), its gone up from 80p late last year to 1.50 today.

Price in Lidl i saw this morning, 89p. Hmm...
Hope you are not relying on that system for long term inflation, when I started my first fob as a baker 45 years ago double cream was £1.10 a pint.
 

AM9

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Hope you are not relying on that system for long term inflation, when I started my first fob as a baker 45 years ago double cream was £1.10 a pint.
The long term price of cream as a product is more governed by the demand for different types of milk. 45 years ago, a far greater proportion of cow's milk was sold as full cream, (4%). Firstly, the cream levels overall have dropped, - full cream milk is now more like 3.4% cream. Then sales of full cream have fallen in favour of semi-skimmed (1.7%) and skimmed (<0.1%) leaving much of the cream in milk as a byproduct.
 

Gloster

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Morrison’s 1 kg Bran flakes (own brand) up from £1.20 or £1.25 to £1.49. They were reduced for a week or two before the increase, so I am not quite sure of the previous price.
 

kristiang85

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Lurpak is my barometer - not so long ago, a 500g tub was £2.50, now it's £4.50.

I tried the supermarket own brand butter and its foul (in comparison), so I'm just going to have to suck up the Lurpak price and spread thinner I guess.

(There must be a joke about one's bread and butter here somewhere, but it's too early on a Monday for my brain to work like that).
 

takno

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Lurpak is my barometer - not so long ago, a 500g tub was £2.50, now it's £4.50.

I tried the supermarket own brand butter and its foul (in comparison), so I'm just going to have to suck up the Lurpak price and spread thinner I guess.

(There must be a joke about one's bread and butter here somewhere, but it's too early on a Monday for my brain to work like that).
Lurpak is constantly on and off offer, and has been for as long as I can remember. I paid about 3 quid for it 2 weeks ago in Sainsburys. The supermarket stuff tends to be about 65% butter rather than 80%, which is a fairly significant difference - personally I'm fine with either, but I can appreciate why people might not be. If it wasn't summer I'd say just buy normal butter and leave it out of the fridge.
 

ComUtoR

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The supermarket stuff tends to be about 65% butter rather than 80%, which is a fairly significant difference

This depends on what butter you are buying. The Lurpak spreadable is only "64%" Worse if you read the supermarket description of it being a 'Blended spread 78%'"


Blended Spread 78% (52% milk fat & 26% rapeseed oil)

or listed under their ingredients.

  • Butter (64%) (Milk),
  • Rapeseed Oil,
  • Water,
  • Lactic Culture (Milk),
  • Salt

Blocks of butter are very different to spreadables.

Personally I like Flora Buttery but now I just read the ingredients as having palm oil I may reconsider.
 

PeterC

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Shopping around has some serious logistical issues. When I first married we had a small supermarket a few minutes walk away another a mile away and Sainsbury's in the town centre 2 miles away. It wasn't practical to compare in one shopping trip and by the time we had built a list of comparative prices something would have changed.

Comparative shopping o line gets more difficult when you have to account for delivery charges too. These days, for anything that will keep, I try and buy one to use and one for the store cupboard.
 

GusB

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Lurpak is my barometer - not so long ago, a 500g tub was £2.50, now it's £4.50.

I tried the supermarket own brand butter and its foul (in comparison), so I'm just going to have to suck up the Lurpak price and spread thinner I guess.

(There must be a joke about one's bread and butter here somewhere, but it's too early on a Monday for my brain to work like that).

I've tried various supermarket alternatives to Lurpak and they're all fairly poor except Nordpak (Aldi), which I found to be acceptable. I tried the Asda own-brand equivalent and it wasn't nice.

I've been buying Anchor spreadable for around £2.50 lately, but I've just checked the Asda website and it's gone up to £4.50.
 

Gloster

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Quorn Vegetarian Steak Slice is now £1.99 in Morrison’s. I am not sure what it was before, bit I think it was £1.75.
 

Mcr Warrior

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Quorn Vegetarian Steak Slice is now £1.99 in Morrison’s. I am not sure what it was before, bit I think it was £1.75.
It was. Elsewhere Sainsbury's are currently charging £2.00 for the same item.
 
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