Foody Bargains

Food bargains was something I used to take great delight in procuring in Switzerland, especially with the price of meat so high, I always enjoyed COOP on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Gartenstadt, and occasionally when I was there early on a Saturday to buy discount meaty morsels at 50% off. The lure of those bright orange labels was just too great, even when I knew I would practically be sitting on the chest freezer lid to seal it shut when I got home!

Food bargains here in the UK are a lot less predictable, so far but strangely feel less self-conscious buying my foody discounts in Waitrose than say Morrisons, which is our local supermarket on our estate.  In Morrisons I have already picked up some great bargains, cut price sausages, mature cheddar cheese, fish, a huge (yes huge,  1.8kg to all you Swiss friends) corn-fed chicken and even a Melton Mowbray pork pie or two :-) I am single-handedly solving Wokinghams' food waste issues ;-)  However, in Morrisons, you have to go to the 'great deals' section of the chiller cabinet where all the bargains are together on display, and you cannot help but feel a little cheap for looking/raking through this section. I suppose this is mainly because Morrisons is not exactly the most expensive quality supermarket in town, and you are purchasing something cheaper when it was pretty inexpensive to start with!  However, saying that, I have been pleasantly surprised at their product lines (and no, I am not receiving sponsorship for saying this...).  I do still feel that the healthy food seems disproportionately more expensive than the junk food they sell though :-/

In Waitrose, no such bargain-related stigma, the bargains are not so easy to spot, no orange labels, just discreet white reduced labels stuck over the bar-code and left all over the store like a treasure hunt to find in every department.  So this makes it all the more rewarding when you spot something on the shelf.  I have already had cut price lettuce, cress and ready-made salads, all consumed that day and still in good nick, so why pay full price!!