Saturday 2 February 2013

Our veg has the edge....

I’ve vowed this month to keep a more careful tab on how our non-supermarket shopping is totting up.

I’m starting with our veg box. As regular readers will recall, we have a weekly organic fruit and veg box delivered from our local superhero greengrocer Banana Bob (who sadly doesn’t operate in yellow and blue Lycra).

This costs us exactly £12 each week and we get a seasonal variety of potatoes, fruit, vegetables and salad stuff.

I’ve taken the contents of this week’s box and priced up a similar shop at Tesco using the supermarket's website, which came to £17.49. So that's a £5.49 difference.

However, it’s not an exact science because the weights differ slightly. I’ve gone for the closest measures possible but I could only find some of Tesco's organic produce in bags, so for example I've had to choose a 700g bag of organic Tesco carrots as the nearest comparison to the 400g we got in our veg box. Also I couldn't find organic options on the Tesco website for all the items we got in our veg box, so I’ve had to price them up with the regular non-organic varieties offered instead. So, for example, I've had to use the price for a non-organic Tesco aubergine in comparison to the organic one in our veg box. 

Our organic box contained:
This week's veg box - nosy rabbit not included!
400g carrots
350g parsnips
450g leeks
1.5kg potatoes
300g broccoli
One red pepper
One aubergine
Half a cucumber
One punnet cherry tomatoes
Two white onions
One red onion
One bunch of bananas
Four oranges
Four apples

The Tesco shop I priced up on their website was:
Carrots: organic 700g bag - £1
Parsnips: organic 500g bag -£1.50
Potatoes: organic 1.3kg bag - £2

Leeks: organic 400g pack - £2
Broccoli: organic 300g bunch -£1.20
Red pepper: no single organic peppers available so priced up one normal one - 80p
Aubergine: no organic available so priced up a normal one - £1
Cucumber: organic cucumbers were £1.25 for a whole one but no halves, so I’ve halved the cost instead - 62p
White onion: no single organic onions, only bagged ones, so I’ve priced up two normal ones - 19p each
Red onion: again organic only available in bags, so priced up a single normal one - 19p
Cherry tomatoes: one packet - £1
Bananas: fair trade organic bunch - £1.40
Oranges: organic four-pack - £1.90

Apples: Gala pack of five - £2.50

Clearly this working out of mine is rather rough but I think we can conclude that our vegetable box appears to be better value than the supermarket alternative. Although the Tesco shop included a greater quantity of carrots and parsnips, several of the items I priced up were not organic.

Food for thought for those who think supermarkets offer the best value for money on fresh produce....


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