The typical grocery shop has one less item in it. It doesn’t sound much, but that’s a huge change that might have taken years that’s happened more or less overnight. The surprise is just quite how sudden that has taken place. It’s like people came out of Christmas & said ‘Right, now I’m going to have to do things differently.’So said Justin King announcing disappointing results for Sainsbury’s on 23 March.
In fact ‘one item less per shop’ would represent about a 1% drop in quantity if the average of nearly 500 items per month bought by the average family is spread over 5 separate trips to the store.
A snide person might therefore conclude that Sainsbury’s latest marketing campaign is aimed at encouraging families to purchase more of their items in their stores.
How to feed a family of four three meals a day for a week for a mere £50.
Actually I think this goes a long way to meeting a real need for decent practical advice about nutrition, of a sort that used to be a staple of women’s magazines when I was young (along with other sources such as school & family). We all need inspiration & information to cope in this changing world, without feeling that we are being patronised, nagged, told we are just not good enough.
There is detailed information on the website, apps are available, as are leaflets in store.
The meals look nice enough, though the breakfasts look a bit meagre – just cereal or toast – no sign of the boiled egg being eaten by the little cover girl.
But there are no puddings or sweets – not even fruit! I can’t decide whether this is just to duck arguments about sugar - “We’ve worked with nutritionists at the BNF”, & the fine print includes caveats about ‘may not be suitable for very young children’ - or whether it is just a sign that times are hard, treats just are not in the budget.
I was however impressed to note that “Where whole packs are not used in the recipe, we have still included the full pack price in the calculation.” This is the kind of thing my mother warned me of: You may think you know how to manage the housekeeping, but you’ll find it very hard to begin with when you realise that you have to buy whole packets of things like salt & spices, even just for basic cooking.’
