Funny but revealing piece about how the £3 Tesco meal deal, which has been around for ten years, has gone up to *£3.90*..! Interesting reporting on how this symbolises a wider loss of discounts and promotions in supermarkets, with mark-downs being linked to loyalty cards more than before, and poorer areas being affected by the lack of budget ranges in Big Supermarket Deserts.
I’ve often wondered if this might be in part due to my abuse of Tescos generous inclusion of the triple bacon egg and sausage sandwich in the deal, I mean you’re getting an extra sandwich and meat but for the same price, surely that can’t be sustainable over 10 years.
It signals that something can’t realistically remain £3 for a decade if there’s been any inflation at all
Great piece, and appreciated the shoutout for our battleground microwave
Absolutely sick and fucking tired of this now!!!
Can we please just have a General Election now?
You’ve only gone and fucked up the one staple work-elixir that just about anyone can afford.
>While it’s harder to afford the basics, luxury and premium products (like the posh ready meals in Valentine’s Day dinner bundles, for example) are less affected by inflation – a trend the budget recipe writer and food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe pointed out in January. “An upmarket ready meal range was £7.50 ten years ago, and is still £7.50 today,” they tweeted. “A high-end store’s ‘Dine In For Two For £10’ has been £10 for as long as I can remember.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve read this argument and it completely misunderstands what is going on here: a high end ready meal has more headroom for shrinkflation and shiteflation (bulking with cheap ingredients instead of the good stuff). Today’s £7.50 lasagna won’t be anyway near as tasty or nutritious or filling as a £7.50 lasagna from 10 years ago.
Conversely if something is already as cheap and nasty as it can be, or is just a bog standard ingredient like the articles rice example, shrinkflation and shiteflation aren’t possible so the price has to go up.
Somewhat sad they went with this as a headline. The actual article itself hits upon a few good points. A £3 meal deal increasing in price after over 10 years is not one of them.
It sucks as I do enjoy the premade supermarket sandwiches.
But tbh, They were already a rip off in my mind. 3 pounds for a single sandwich, or tescos meal deal which was at least reasonable. I think it was already overpriced.
But I’ll spend a tenner on a ten pack of beers regularly, so maybe I’m just an idiot
Jack Monroe’s quote about ‘premium deals’ staying at £10 is just not true though.
The countries acceptance of such bland mediocrity that is the supermarket meal deal is part of why we are all in this mess in the first place. Complacent suffering that the British people love.
Some people will see this and talk about just bringing a packed lunch because it is cheaper (which it is, also much healthier), however the cost of that packed lunch will also have gone up too. It might have gone up more so as the price of everything has gone up slowly in 10-20p increments over the year, which stacks up over the cost of one shop.
I don’t buy ready meals, jarred sauces etc. I only buy whole foods and cereal; all of those have gone up in price by a noticeable amount. I don’t even bother with brand names, except in rare cases, it still has gone up noticeably. There is just nothing anyone can do but buy less as their money goes less further every month.
I wonder when Anoosh Chakelian last had a supermarket meal deal for lunch like the rest of us filthy povos
[deleted]
And it’s bullshit. It was handy for shift based workers. After a hetic shift, one can be rather knackered and not in the mood to cook or physically have no energy left thus that meal deal didn’t hurt the wallet that much and it’s enough as a small deal. Now? It costs too much and you see £5 meal deals that feature stuff from a few years ago. If I’m gonna to spend a fiver on food, i ain’t paying for just a sandwhich, drink and a snack.
If you’re regularly spending £3 on your lunch then you either won’t feel the effects of inflation or you need to assess your spending habits
Which food bank was quoted from Hodge Hill? Hard to imagine being 2 miles from a supermarket there unless something has closed.
If the meal deal has been £3 for 10 years. Does that not mean it was too expensive to begin with?
Where have all the discounts and cheap promotions gone?
Where’s the spendthrift Hercules to fight the rising costs?
Isn’t there a white knight upon a fuel efficient steed?
Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of cheaper feed!
I think the cheap meal deal sandwiches are really bad quality food
Where are we going as a species, if the meal deal is even less affordable.
Death?
I mean it’s only £4 still and had been £3.50 for years.
It was also shit.
Or just raise wages. Like CEOs pay and companies dividends. The system is top heavy
An era of making packed lunch for a fraction of the cost
It signals new era of WEF domination when you own nothing and are happy 🙂
The boots one is still reasonable if you get a boots card. It’s something like 3.65 but you get decent stuff for it.
Jamie Oliver has ruined low priced food because it’s “unhealthy”
Almost like non elected privately owned central banks shouldn’t be in control of an entire nations currency?
It’s been ages since Poundland it’s no Poundland anymore, now is 3 pounds land or more anger other overpriced Chinese shit.
Signals going back to making your own sandwiches & £3 lasting a weeks worth. If you don’t mind shit ham everyday. Won’t be worse than a flat pack Tescos butty.
can confirm asda in my town ended this deal during a refit of the store, they even brought back the smart price range but people got so greedy they had to put limits of three of the same item in affect for that range.
The article makes good points, however the price of a meal deal isn’t exactly surprising.
The tesco meal deal was priced at £3 with a clubcard for 10 years (or at least I think it’s 10 years, some websites say a decade, some say over a decade and I can’t find an exact date.) The bank of england calculates that the price of a meal deal with a clubcard in 2012 would be £3.87, 3p cheaper than it would be without a clubcard today. If they really wanted to they could have made the £3 meal deal £3.40 in 2019, as that is how much it would have cost then.
I went back to England last week. I go every year to see my nan around Christmas. I want to get a meal deal from Asda but now it’s cheapest item free? Now I can’t pick all the most expensive things because it’ll still cost about 7 quid. Shocking.
Couldn’t they have kept the price down by ditching the branded crisps and drinks for their own-brand ones?
>Picking out a meal deal is always comforting. It has the reassuring illusion of choice. And there’s a certain chicness to tailoring one’s own gastronomic experience (the sharp tang of pickled onion Monster Munch, or the sour bomb of a nitrogenated pineapple hunk, cuts through the umami of a tuna sweetcorn sandwich, paired with a full-bodied yet versatile Diet Coke).
Mark Corrigan now writes for the newstatesman
Grim new era?
I didn’t realise half a bag of walkers air and a shit ham sandwich was considered a good era.
They came for our multi-pack crisps and I did not speak up.
37 comments
Funny but revealing piece about how the £3 Tesco meal deal, which has been around for ten years, has gone up to *£3.90*..! Interesting reporting on how this symbolises a wider loss of discounts and promotions in supermarkets, with mark-downs being linked to loyalty cards more than before, and poorer areas being affected by the lack of budget ranges in Big Supermarket Deserts.
(you can read it here if you can’t register for the free reads: https://archive.ph/AGTLR)
I’ve often wondered if this might be in part due to my abuse of Tescos generous inclusion of the triple bacon egg and sausage sandwich in the deal, I mean you’re getting an extra sandwich and meat but for the same price, surely that can’t be sustainable over 10 years.
It signals that something can’t realistically remain £3 for a decade if there’s been any inflation at all
Great piece, and appreciated the shoutout for our battleground microwave
Absolutely sick and fucking tired of this now!!!
Can we please just have a General Election now?
You’ve only gone and fucked up the one staple work-elixir that just about anyone can afford.
>While it’s harder to afford the basics, luxury and premium products (like the posh ready meals in Valentine’s Day dinner bundles, for example) are less affected by inflation – a trend the budget recipe writer and food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe pointed out in January. “An upmarket ready meal range was £7.50 ten years ago, and is still £7.50 today,” they tweeted. “A high-end store’s ‘Dine In For Two For £10’ has been £10 for as long as I can remember.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve read this argument and it completely misunderstands what is going on here: a high end ready meal has more headroom for shrinkflation and shiteflation (bulking with cheap ingredients instead of the good stuff). Today’s £7.50 lasagna won’t be anyway near as tasty or nutritious or filling as a £7.50 lasagna from 10 years ago.
Conversely if something is already as cheap and nasty as it can be, or is just a bog standard ingredient like the articles rice example, shrinkflation and shiteflation aren’t possible so the price has to go up.
so, £3 at 2012 price, inflation adjusted to 2022 using the [bank of england inflation calculator](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator) works out to be…. drumroll please…..
£3.87… so… yeah.
Somewhat sad they went with this as a headline. The actual article itself hits upon a few good points. A £3 meal deal increasing in price after over 10 years is not one of them.
It sucks as I do enjoy the premade supermarket sandwiches.
But tbh, They were already a rip off in my mind. 3 pounds for a single sandwich, or tescos meal deal which was at least reasonable. I think it was already overpriced.
But I’ll spend a tenner on a ten pack of beers regularly, so maybe I’m just an idiot
Jack Monroe’s quote about ‘premium deals’ staying at £10 is just not true though.
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/buylists/tesco-finest-meal-deal/mains
https://groceries.asda.com/shelf/chilled-food/ready-meals/extra-special-ready-meals/extra-special-meal-for-2/1215660378320-910000975205-1215678247093-1215678247523
https://groceries.morrisons.com/offers/the-best-dine-in-for-two-12-1005387727
Its 12 pounds now
The countries acceptance of such bland mediocrity that is the supermarket meal deal is part of why we are all in this mess in the first place. Complacent suffering that the British people love.
Some people will see this and talk about just bringing a packed lunch because it is cheaper (which it is, also much healthier), however the cost of that packed lunch will also have gone up too. It might have gone up more so as the price of everything has gone up slowly in 10-20p increments over the year, which stacks up over the cost of one shop.
I don’t buy ready meals, jarred sauces etc. I only buy whole foods and cereal; all of those have gone up in price by a noticeable amount. I don’t even bother with brand names, except in rare cases, it still has gone up noticeably. There is just nothing anyone can do but buy less as their money goes less further every month.
I wonder when Anoosh Chakelian last had a supermarket meal deal for lunch like the rest of us filthy povos
[deleted]
And it’s bullshit. It was handy for shift based workers. After a hetic shift, one can be rather knackered and not in the mood to cook or physically have no energy left thus that meal deal didn’t hurt the wallet that much and it’s enough as a small deal. Now? It costs too much and you see £5 meal deals that feature stuff from a few years ago. If I’m gonna to spend a fiver on food, i ain’t paying for just a sandwhich, drink and a snack.
If you’re regularly spending £3 on your lunch then you either won’t feel the effects of inflation or you need to assess your spending habits
Which food bank was quoted from Hodge Hill? Hard to imagine being 2 miles from a supermarket there unless something has closed.
If the meal deal has been £3 for 10 years. Does that not mean it was too expensive to begin with?
Where have all the discounts and cheap promotions gone?
Where’s the spendthrift Hercules to fight the rising costs?
Isn’t there a white knight upon a fuel efficient steed?
Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of cheaper feed!
I think the cheap meal deal sandwiches are really bad quality food
Where are we going as a species, if the meal deal is even less affordable.
Death?
I mean it’s only £4 still and had been £3.50 for years.
It was also shit.
Or just raise wages. Like CEOs pay and companies dividends. The system is top heavy
An era of making packed lunch for a fraction of the cost
It signals new era of WEF domination when you own nothing and are happy 🙂
The boots one is still reasonable if you get a boots card. It’s something like 3.65 but you get decent stuff for it.
Jamie Oliver has ruined low priced food because it’s “unhealthy”
Almost like non elected privately owned central banks shouldn’t be in control of an entire nations currency?
It’s been ages since Poundland it’s no Poundland anymore, now is 3 pounds land or more anger other overpriced Chinese shit.
Signals going back to making your own sandwiches & £3 lasting a weeks worth. If you don’t mind shit ham everyday. Won’t be worse than a flat pack Tescos butty.
can confirm asda in my town ended this deal during a refit of the store, they even brought back the smart price range but people got so greedy they had to put limits of three of the same item in affect for that range.
The article makes good points, however the price of a meal deal isn’t exactly surprising.
The tesco meal deal was priced at £3 with a clubcard for 10 years (or at least I think it’s 10 years, some websites say a decade, some say over a decade and I can’t find an exact date.) The bank of england calculates that the price of a meal deal with a clubcard in 2012 would be £3.87, 3p cheaper than it would be without a clubcard today. If they really wanted to they could have made the £3 meal deal £3.40 in 2019, as that is how much it would have cost then.
I went back to England last week. I go every year to see my nan around Christmas. I want to get a meal deal from Asda but now it’s cheapest item free? Now I can’t pick all the most expensive things because it’ll still cost about 7 quid. Shocking.
Couldn’t they have kept the price down by ditching the branded crisps and drinks for their own-brand ones?
>Picking out a meal deal is always comforting. It has the reassuring illusion of choice. And there’s a certain chicness to tailoring one’s own gastronomic experience (the sharp tang of pickled onion Monster Munch, or the sour bomb of a nitrogenated pineapple hunk, cuts through the umami of a tuna sweetcorn sandwich, paired with a full-bodied yet versatile Diet Coke).
Mark Corrigan now writes for the newstatesman
Grim new era?
I didn’t realise half a bag of walkers air and a shit ham sandwich was considered a good era.
They came for our multi-pack crisps and I did not speak up.