A little reminder

  You've probably heard me mouthing off about supermarkets taking the piss with their pricing. Today will be a nudge to remind you that you have to stay vigilant especially around the fresh fruit and veg. One piece of advice I offer is to always buy loose items instead of the packaged ones.

  Occasionally they will sell bags of items that are cheaper, but this is normally because they are misshapen, or too small and it can be a way of saving a bit of money. Most of the time though, anything in any sort of wrapping is more expensive. While buying pears, I noticed a pack of pears that were discounted as they were getting close to their best before date. I went to investigate. And then I got mischievous.

  As the pears are all stacked together it was easy to do a price comparison. However, while the kilo price is normally the easiest way to compare options, occasionally fruit and veg are priced by the piece. This was the situation with the packs of pears and might have been enough to put the usual price conscious shopper off further snooping.

  But I'm not the usual price conscious shopper. I took the pack of pears over to the weighing machine where I got all the information I needed. (I then stuck the label from the weighing machine on the pears to save other shoppers the hassle.) In case you're looking at this on a small screen and can't see the writing, I'll tell you what it says. The weight of the pack is three quarters of a kilo and the kilo price is two pounds. If the pears were loose they would cost one pound fifty, but because they came with a spiffy tray and some wrapping, you could take them home for two pounds fifty five, or about sixty six percent more than loose and unwrapped.

  It gets better though. The price I just quoted was the discounted price. If you paid full price and got the longer shelf life, you'd be paying three pounds. An increase of one hundred percent. That's right, if you choose pears that come wrapped, you're paying double. I know this isn't the same for every fruit and vegetable but I think you'll agree it's definitely worth considering next time you go shopping.

Kirk out

RevoltingFood.com