OUR Food Prices exercise during 2013 has revealed frequent price and weight changes with *carrots – and this month the weight of pre-pack carrots has dropped from a 600g packet back to 500g.
In this continuing year of austerity, shopping carefully has become essential – particularly for those families on a tight budget. Our Price Watcher series is following the prices of four staple food items in the Big Co-op on Hull Road. Note: These are often different from prices in the smaller Co-op Store in Hedon’s Market Place which charges convenience shop rates for the same items in many cases.
Prices in July 2013 (bought first week of the month):
| Item | Price July 2013 | Change from last month | Change since Jan 2013 |
| Milk – Co-op 1 pint | £0.50p | ||
| Margarine – I can’t believe it’s not butter (500g) | £1.80 | +0.90 | +0.80 |
| Bread – Co-op Wholemeal (800g) | £0.95 | +0.06 | |
| *Carrots – Co-op (back to 500g) | £0.75 | -0.13 | -0.25 |
| Totals | £4.00 |
0.77 | 0.61 |
Actual Carrot Prices so far in 2013 (always bought in the first week of the month):
- Jan – 50p – 500g (This was a 50% offer price so we listed £1 as our bench mark in January – which in hindsight was a mistake!)
- Feb – £1 – 500g
- Mar – 50p – 500g
- Apr – 85p – 750g (free 50% extra offer)
- May – 90p – 600g
- June – 88p – 600g
- July – 75p – 500g
So has anybody identified a pricing pattern or strategy yet!? Perhaps we could have a “guess the price of next month’s carrots” competition?
We have spent £5.38 on carrots in 7 months buying 3.95kg of carrots. That’s an average of 68p spent per 500g bag of pre-packed carrots.
