What's In Your Weekly Shopping Basket?

I was taken by a series of photos recently that showed typical families from around the world with their weekly food put out in front of them. The differences in how much each family spent for a week on food was staggering but not that surprising given the different costs of living and, crucially, the amount of food involved. We all know that we generally eat far more food in the West (and developing countries) than we actually need, obesity being a real concern now and one that is only going to get worse. It wasn't that which surprised me though. Looking at what food was actually on show started me thinking about not only the nutritional value but also of the costs involved. For the so-called developed countries there was a predominance of processed foods. 

I'm not just talking about ready-meals that you heat up in the micro-wave, this is about foods that have been produced in factories for our consumption. Breakfast cereals, tinned food, coffee and chocolate all fall into this category, not to mention confectionaries and snacks. While there was fresh produce in evidence on the tables of the developed country families it was very much in the minority. This was in stark contrast to the food the families in some of the poorest counties of the world were showing. Their food for the week almost entirely consisted of fresh produce and by and large this was fruit and vegetables - very little meat.

This got me thinking about how much we spend on food. Those companies producing the processed foods in factories have to make a profit so that's where a great deal of the price goes, along with money to the retailer. If we could only increase the amount of fresh produce we used in our weekly meals we would be reducing that element of the cost. The health benefits ought to be obvious to everyone too. 

If you put all the food you and your family ate in a week on a table in front of you what would it look like?

Cash Is King

With new technical ideas to be make it easy for us to spend our money without using cash we get further and further away from understanding the real value of money. Tweeting to pay for something, come on, just where is this going to end? With the world's richest countries owing trillions in debt (are they really that rich and developed if they owe so much?) it's little wonder that such an acceptance of debt as a way of life is becoming the norm for so many. But it doesn't have to be that way.

You know how much you spend on food and other items each week so just take out that amount of cash and stick to it! Once you start using cash you very quickly start to realise how much different goods really cost. And remember too that if you are starting to use your local shops more (10% of your weekly shop makes sense) using cash in those shops means the owners don't have to pay a percentage admin charge for each card transaction, keeping the real money in the local community. All this, and it doesn't cost you a penny more.

Small Shop Closures Are Progress - NOT!

Sir Terry Leahy the former boss of Tesco has described the closure of small shops and the dominance of supermarkets as 'part of progress'. No-one would deny that the continual closure of small shops who simply cannot compete with the buying power of the huge supermarket chains as a consequence, but 'part of progress', really? This comes after a month in the UK retail sector that has seen the death of Blockbuster, HMV and Jessops. Hardly small corner shops and maybe supermarkets creeping into their traditional markets wasn't entirely to blame for their demise but there will have been an element of that. After all, there is very little you cannot buy in supermarkets these days. If it isn't actually in the store itself you can probably order it on the supermarket's own website. Who's next to be killed off by the supermarkets I wonder?

The benefits of out of town supermarkets 'far outweigh the costs' was something else that Sir Terry said. Well, they do I guess if you have your own transport and don't want a High Street in your local town that resembles a High Street. Many supermarket chains have even opened their own stores back in High Streets, probably in premises they vacated 10 or 20 years ago, so they are recognising a public demand to some extent. Wouldn't it be good though if we were assured that the prices they charged in these 'local stores' were the same as in all their larger stores. Come on Tesco and others, give us a promise on price that means something.

Size Matters When You Are Buying Food

Be careful next time you are out doing your food shopping. If you are used to buying particular products on a regular basis you probably just pick them off the supermarket shelf and put them in your basket without even thinking. This, of course, is what the supermarkets and the producers want you to do, especially the big name brands. You see, what they are very clever at doing is varying the size and quantity of what's inside the packaging and at the same time promoting special offers and discounts. On top of this the different sized packets are often side by side on the shelves making it difficult to decide which is the best buy while trying to remember what you bought last time. 

To be fair most of the big supermarkets, in the UK at least, do put up prices per 100g etc. which does allow you to compare different products and brands. Nevertheless, it can be daunting at times trying to figure out whether the tub of soft cheese you are looking at is the same as the one you've just run out of at home. To make matters worse the size differences aren't always that much, 200g verses 300g isn't a great deal and it would be easy to pick up the wrong one by mistake. There's no doubt about it that we all need to be aware of these differences and be prepared to do a little mental arithmetic to make sure we get the best deal for ourselves. 

Size does of course matter but getting the best value for money in our food shopping is even more important.

Throwing Out Food Is Like Throwing Away Money

With so much in the news about the amount of food that gets thrown away it's worth just thinking for a moment about how we buy our food, store our food and use it. Firstly we shouldn't get too excited about all the headline grabbing numbers that have been thrown around. The findings they were supposedly objectively reporting spoke of 'up to half may be thrown away' which sounded far better as 'half of all food is thrown away' in a headline! Why do we throw away food? The most obvious reason is that it's gone off or is well past its sell-by or use-by date (be sensible, you don't need to throw it away the day after the sell-by date). So if the food has obviously 'gone off' you need to ditch it but why have you been keeping it for so long in the first place? We all keep far too much food in our cupboards and fridges which is one of the reasons why some of it will ultimately go to waste. 

The days of having to hoard food are far gone. We have shops that are regularly stocked and easy to get to - they are our cupboards now and the produce is always fresh.

Just think about how much food you keep in at any one time and consider how much gets thrown away. You really can make a change in the way you buy and store food and it will have a positive impact on your wallet too. Next time you throw some food into the bin just imagine throwing the coins and notes in there instead.