Why supermarkets aren’t always super-savers

Prices are soaring, shortages are looming. As war devastates lives and livelihoods in Ukraine, prices for fuel are spiralling up, and with them the costs of supply chains. Wheat prices in Britain are 39 per cent higher than a year ago, and with Ukrainian farmers unable to plant spring crops, there’s no prospect of a let-up in the coming months.

In Britain we will feel the ripples first in our food shopping. Last month Ronald Kers, CEO of 2 Sisters, whose turnover makes it the largest food company in the UK, predicted food prices may rise by 15 per cent this year. And it’s the poorest of us likely to feel the pinch most, according to think tank The Resolution Foundation.

There is a sense of déjà vu: just two years ago we were stumbling through the first weeks of lockdown. For many of us it was the first time in our lives we’d experienced empty shelves and panic buying.

You’d hope that we’d have learnt something from the experience, and not just that stacking the spare room with loo paper isn’t the answer. Also, that if you can’t get an online slot, those bricks-andmortar places still exist…

Lockdown saw us using local shops more, and Chris Noice of the Association of Convenience Stores tells me that sales are holding up since restrictions eased, although there’s been a shift towards citycentre shops close to people’s workplaces. Yes, prices are a bit higher, he says, but ‘people understand that the economies of scale and business models are different for smaller shops’.

I hope that’s true. It’s all too easy to appreciate having local independent shops for emergencies, but walk past them when it comes to bigger purchases. But if we want these community stalwarts to survive, they need to sell more than the odd pint of milk. Use it or lose it: you know the rules.

Meanwhile, supermarkets’ reputations are looking distinctly tarnished. Take their direct competitors to the local independents, the Sainsbury’s Locals and Tesco Metros. The branding implies that they are simply smaller versions of their bigger brothers, offering the same knock-down pricing. They don’t. Not only do they tend not to offer the cheaper ranges, sticking to the high-end, highermargin products, but even there the prices are often tweaked up in the smaller stores.

The loyalty schemes that supermarkets have used to turn our heads since Green Shield stamps launched in 1958 have lost their lustre, too. Tesco has subtly shifted the balance from rewarding its Clubcard holders to penalising people who choose not to share their data with the mega-retailer, as special offers are available only to card-carrying customers. Even Waitrose has dropped its joyfully generous free newspaper offer.

It’s about more than the money. Recent research by food-delivery start-up Bother indicated we spend more than eight months of our lives in supermarkets, once you’ve added up the average of three trips a week at 37 minutes a time.

If the thought of spending less time traipsing around soulless megastore aisles isn’t enough to make you think about using your small local shops more, then consider the travel cost. A few lucky people will be able to walk or cycle to the supermarket, though they’ll still need to get the family shop home. For the rest of us, with the average drive time to and from the supermarket of 22 minutes, there’s a substantial fuel cost for drivers – it varies according to car and travel conditions, but could be about £3.

Add in the extra items that inevitably sneak into the trolley – supermarkets are adept at tempting us with stuff we don’t need – and the cost of shopping there may not be as cut-price as it appears.