Georgina Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Right, that is the limit.I carefully check prices wherever I go and I shop at all the supermarkets daily. Today I saw the same potatoes I bought last week at 3.99E for 7,18E for just 5kg. I checked with Netto and the price was correct. Needless to say the basket was completely full and nobody was buying them. I can live without potatoes. I have not been buying cabbages at 3E and more for some time either.Cooking oil has risen 30% in the last year. Coffee also.When people bring me newspapers from England and I see what we can get, vegetables for next to nothing, it is really scary. I don't care what the hell they taste like anymore. Cost of food is crazy.What the hell is going on. If there were fish and chip shops over here they would go out of business. Fish and steak are beyond me.(By the way always check your receipts because they are nearly always wrong everywhere). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob T Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I sometimes check my till receipts and have only once found it wrong in about 6 years, I don't understand why yours are nearly always wrong.If I were to compare food prices with the UK, then I would also factor in diesel prices, council tax prices, road tax, electricity prices etc. I would then realise that we are better off here despite slightly higher food prices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Must be your area perhaps?Cauliflower 2€Bag of Carrots 2kg - 1€Potatoes 5kg - 1.79€Salmon last Friday, three fillets for 2€ and trout 1€ each.Four packs of coffee for the price of three - 5€That's at Carrefour in 11500Having said that we buy in bulk when the price is right and freeze if its meat (all pork at 2.30€ per kg in Feb for instance, i'm down to my last 30 odd chops now) but when you compare to Tesco's online then prices in France are generally higher. Don't forget also that the adverts in the English papers are normally special offers. There is also the 'seasonal' thing that we forget about here in France and if you look around at spuds they are nearly ready to harvest so they will be for nothing soon. Also the French want you to buy French grown food to support your local farmers (who I think rip you off anyway but that's me) so imported food is always very expensive by comparison.You could always grow your own spuds. [;-)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I don't know why I think that you are in Brittany, (or Normandy) and we often found Brittany expensive in mid summer for lots of food products. We used to holiday regularly in Brittany and compared to 'home' it was dear.I never found the cheap supermarkets to be always the cheapest, I always shopped around.RE the prices in the UK, well I have been keeping my eye on them and frankly it is only in the last 6 weeks that I have found price rises that have been noticeable. Please, council tax for me is less here than it was in France and we are not on the lowest band.My gas and electricity have been lower, even with the price hikes, although, I did live somewhere cold in winter in France so we'll say that that is kif-kif and not argue, as prices, I do know have gone up in France too, since I left.Clothes and shoes, well frankly I have never had such a good wardrobe in years. Maybe not to everyone's taste, but I like it and more to the point, have not had to 'think and save' before I can afford things.My other bills are not out of the way at all. I am a cautious shopper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I don't know why I think that you are in Brittany[:)] Because it says 29 (Finisterre) in the profile perhaps ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 [:D]Yes, I must have seen it, but didn't look today, that was just what came into my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Riff-Raff Element Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Curious. We had guests last week who waxed lyrical about how the prices of fruit & veg were so much lower and the quality so much higher here than in the UK. Can't say I'd noticed since most of our stuff comes from the garden.The general worldwide rise in the prices of basic foodstuff and commodities notwithstanding, it seems to me that our grocery bill is lower than it was a year ago. There's been some small changes to the pricing rules that mean supermarkets can offer more in the way of bogoffs & specials, and there is quite a little price war going on a the moment which Carrafour - I am told - are losing. The big winner, it seems, is the Le Clerc franchise.Heady stuff on a dull day.I've never any serious errors on my till receipt either. Some people have all the fun. The closest I got was when the till lady put through a pack of beer twice by mistake and then compounded the error by taking them both off. My children were there, so I 'fessed up to set a good example. Would that it had been something duller! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprogster Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 The high street in the UK is much more competitive and far less regulated than France. Hence why American giants like Walmart operate in the UK under the Asda brand and not France!Also with the weak £ it would be strange if comparative prices in the UK were not currently lower than France.PS. Diesel in France might be lower, but the price of new and second hand cars in France are much higher and toll fees on the autoroutes are becoming v expensive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 It's funny about the quality of food stuffs. We often would have poor stuff in our region in the height of the season and people would say that the best stuff had gone for export. Our market would have terrible stuff on it.The best melons I have had in years, I have bought in Morrisons and people here have asked if I got them in France, maybe they think I brought a cupboard full of them back and just get them out for guests. I don't know, at a £1 a pop that is OK with me, they have to come a long way. I'm not a Leclerc fan at all, never was and found them generally expensive, but I was not above shopping round and getting bargains from them, and anyway, I would have to go in from time to time to see if they had any kouign amann, just love them, warm with a good coffee for gouter and any other time I fancied[Www] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederick Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I have never heard of a French restaurant cutting prices or using a scheme like this to get people into their premises .. http://p5trc.emv2.com/HM?a=ENX7CqknuQJ68SA9MKJPzXvnGHxKLJxgGPcStGb5lw8W0bBhOG5mpqVsje_HhdB-IlCDThis is the sort of prices I can pay to eat out locally if I choose to .... Has anybody ever seen the like of this site in France ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Riff-Raff Element Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 [quote user="Sprogster"]The high street in the UK is much more competitive and far less regulated than France. Hence why American giants like Walmart operate in the UK under the Asda brand and not France!Also with the weak £ it would be strange if comparative prices in the UK were not currently lower than France.PS. Diesel in France might be lower, but the price of new and second hand cars in France are much higher and toll fees on the autoroutes are becoming v expensive[/quote]Surely it would be better for them to operate where the competition is least hot and margins, therefore, higher [8-)] France should, on that basis, be perceived as a good place to come for the likes of Tesco & Walmart: lots of low hanging fruit, as it were. [:D] Come to think of it, aside from Lidl & Aldi, why don't more foreign chains operate here? Foreign firms manage well enough in other industries, so why not supermarket retailing? Likewise, why are there not French chains in the UK? Not that I've been there for a while, but I don't think there are.I would have thought that the weak £ makes imported food more expensive, and the UK imports a lot, particularly given the large amount of fresh and processed foods coming from the Eurozone into the UK.It's all very odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I know that 'Carry 4' used to be in the UK, I know as people used to drive me crazy saying it like that. I have never seen one, but they were at one point. I don't know how these things work, I do know that Carrefour were closing shops/reducing staff in Belgium as it was on TV5 monde news in the not too distant past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprogster Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Jon, French regulations discourages foreign entrants and don't forget the social security costs of employees is much higher for supermarkets in France.The British supermarkets have a lot of buying clout and import themselves direct from the producers, who in many cases are forced to absorb the currency risk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chancer Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I am sure that the first proper supermarket as we know them today that I ever visited was a Carrefour in Johannesburg in 1975, in fact I was for another 30 years ignorant of the real meaning of the word Carrefour.As soon as I arrived in France I headed off to Grenoble for an intensive course in French from a young girl who had just graduated as a teacher, I met her on the great barrier reef.I arrived at the chambre d'hote that I had picked on the mountain outside Grenoble and phoned her for directions of how to find her place, we were speaking in English, she said turn left at the traffic lights at the Carrefour, well I found plenty of junctions with lights but not one Carrefour supermarket so I asked someone for directions to Carrefour [:D] When I got there no-one seemed to recognise the name of her road so I phoned her again, "where are you?" she said "in front of the Carrefour" said I........................................Even in those early days when I could never remember names some did stick with me, that was one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I remember three (?) years ago when the TVA rate on restaurant food was dropped from 19.6% to 5.5% and many proprietors just pocketed the saving. We quickly adjusted the places where we ate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Oh, Riff-Raff, I wish you hadn't mentioned Tesco.If Tesco were to come to a town near me......I think I could manage without all the rest of everything else that I miss about the UK![:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I think the main reason people like Tesco and co don't operate in France is because 'loss leaders' to entice people in are illegal in France. Both operate this scheme in the UK on goods to get you to buy other things to go with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 [quote user="sweet 17"]Oh, Riff-Raff, I wish you hadn't mentioned Tesco.If Tesco were to come to a town near me......I think I could manage without all the rest of everything else that I miss about the UK![:D][/quote]Some three or four years back there was a report (BBC ?) that Tesco had bought Leader Price.Joy of joys until the report was refined and it was LP's Polish chain only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pommier Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 We're in a holiday place and so expect the prices to go up for July and August (which they do!). This year though the price of some food has gone up a lot, especially butter and coffee. It's more noticeable now that the promos have stopped for summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Didn't Tesco bid for the Carrefour Asian shops at the back end of 2010, never heard anything more on that. Carrefour are the second biggest supermarket chain in the world apparently (Walmart is first and Tesco is third). I think, but I may be wrong, that they ended up swapping some shops somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyF Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 FWIW, we're only in France for three months a year over the summer and I can't see much difference between the prices last year and this. The thing that makes a difference is the lousy exchange rate, but many of the prices are the same as last year, which is definitely not the case in the UK! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Riff-Raff Element Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 [quote user="Sprogster"]Jon, French regulations discourages foreign entrants and don't forget the social security costs of employees is much higher for supermarkets in France.The British supermarkets have a lot of buying clout and import themselves direct from the producers, who in many cases are forced to absorb the currency risk.[/quote]I see what you mean, though if the margins are good enough, business will always find a way. After all, the regulations and social costs are the same for all players. Suppliers can be pushed only so far: remember when the British chains who were the only major buyers of satsumas squeezed the growers so much many of them grubbed up the trees and planted clementines for the broader European market instead?What really perplexes me as that no French chain has made a substansive push across the Channel into the UK market where employment rules and planning regs are so much more p-l-i-a-b-le. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyh4 Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 [quote user="Georgina"]Right, that is the limit.I carefully check prices wherever I go and I shop at all the supermarkets daily. Today I saw the same potatoes I bought last week at 3.99E for 7,18E for just 5kg. I checked with Netto and the price was correct. Needless to say the basket was completely full and nobody was buying them. I can live without potatoes. I have not been buying cabbages at 3E and more for some time either.Cooking oil has risen 30% in the last year. Coffee also.When people bring me newspapers from England and I see what we can get, vegetables for next to nothing, it is really scary. I don't care what the hell they taste like anymore. Cost of food is crazy.What the hell is going on. If there were fish and chip shops over here they would go out of business. Fish and steak are beyond me.(By the way always check your receipts because they are nearly always wrong everywhere).[/quote] Sorry not got time to read all of the intermediate posts (so apologies to all who have already posted these) but some things to consider:1. VAT/TVA - 0% in UK on non luxury food stuff. 19.6% in France.2. Drought - reduced yields for local farmers for many crops being harvested just now. Although as always some crops have benefited from the conditions - soft and stone fruits for example3. Worldwide rise in food costs as more of the world can afford to eat like westerners.4. Oil prices - means that "swing crops" can be more profitably sold as feedstock for chemicals (largely alcohol and oils) than as food stuff. Crops being affected: grain, potoatoes and other starch producing crops and rape seed, sunflower, and other oil producing crops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulT Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 [quote user="Bob T"]If I were to compare food prices with the UK, then I would also factor in ...... road tax ......[/quote]Now, I would much prefer to pay a road tax in France than the tolls.I pay £145 road tax in the UK.We make 5 journeys down to France a year. If we went via Paris then the tolls would cost 528 euros. We go via Rouen and it costs 346 euros. This is without going anywhere else via the autoroute.I know that we could take the N roads but would take a great deal longer to get to our house and could require an overnight stay.Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulT Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Yes, food prices do seem high in France but it is also greatly affected when you have to change sterling for euors.Our local boulangerie I have been using for 4.5 years. In that time his prices have not changed which absolutely amazes me.Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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