Could this be Britain's cheapest supermarket??

mrsdewinter

I really admire this guy's get-up-and-go and the fact that he's not ripping off his customers but look at the products he's selling as per the video: tarted-up porridge, posh crisps and green tea.
He says he's providing this service as an alternative to the food bank system in the UK, to give people somewhere to go before they have to go to the local food bank.
But what kind of food, budget and lifestyle choices are people making on an ongoing basis if they'd rather buy posh crisps at a bargain price rather than buy the ingredients for a cheap yet more nutritious pasta meal?

[I think I'm just annoyed that this appeared on Facebook as if the only story here is the admittedly sound guy who runs the place, not the conditions and circumstances that have made this necessary.]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39355804

L1011

Its effectively is a foodbank with a usage fee - retailers/wholesalers don't provide shortdated/outdated stock FOC to commercial businesses; they'll have judged it to be a charity. The usage fee will let some people "deal with" the idea of using a food bank because they're not getting something fully free.

mrsdewinter

Hmm, I hadn't really considered that. Tbh, it's led me to look up exactly what a food bank is, and yes I see that there's no centra Food Bank, no state agency overseeing deposits or withdrawals, so you're right.
Look, I fall down on the frugality front myself but I wish people could discern between 'cheap but good value' and 'cheap but not such a great bargain after all'. 20p for Special K Porridge isn't bad, I suppose, but for not much more, you could buy a bigger packet of regular porridge, which would be lower in sugar and which can also be cooked in the microwave.

L1011

If everyone had the knowledge - and quite critically, the discipline - to live a frugal life we'd see far fewer hard cases in the media. Social welfare levels in Ireland are quite generous by international standards and we've gone from having very dear food basics to very cheap - the "Goods" index of inflation is 11% lower now than ten years ago and only 8% up on twenty.

However - were you taught anything about making cheap healthy meals in school? We actually did some cooking in my BNS but that was with one teacher for who it was her passion and had portable equipment - I suspect insurance has stopped her doing it since. Very few boys and even fairly few girls do home ec (which I know was renamed even when I was in school but can't remember) now either.

There's also the problem that making said cheap, healthy meals interesting requires an initial investment - I can cook a massive vegetarian curry for very little but if someone stole my spices and I had to replace the lot in a small shop (if I had no car like many in constrained circumstances) I'd be looking at well over a hundred quid! Might use ten cents worth for four servings.

As goes the stuff they have in the shop there - food banks can only distribute what they get in, which is generally overstock or much smaller volume donations. Not the ideal stuff to make decent meals from.