Coles Price gouging.

[andye]

...(as an aside - A pack of traffic light capsicum in the UK would cost me under £1, with yellow, red and green capsicums costing around 60p/kg )

Looked even worse a couple of years ago when the AUD:GBP was 1.5

Having said that, my feeling is that Australian wages were set at an 'exchange rate' of over 2 compared to UK in those days

 

[blackcat20]

For a hoot in Woolworths, take a look at, say, chicken thigh fillets in the deli department, then go to the meat department and have a look at the price. Then wonder how the meat department ever sells chicken.....

The chicken in the meat department is usually tidier, ie more of the fat timmed off, but not worth paying $5+/kg more for, we always buy from the deli.

 

[AdMEL]

For a hoot in Woolworths, take a look at, say, chicken thigh fillets in the deli department, then go to the meat department and have a look at the price. Then wonder how the meat department ever sells chicken.....

Or even the loose spinach or rocket leaves (unwashed) for ~$17 a kg, compared with the packaged washed leaves for $33 a kg in a small bag! Same at Coles.

 

[burmans]

Personally I'm a bit unsure what the issue is here. As far as I'm aware we have no specific legislation in Australia for price gouging which means you have to fall back on the less formal definition of prices that are inconsistent with a competitive free Market and or is considered exploitative.

Except here, everyone is free to go to another supermarket or even choose wisely within the same supermarket (and the supermarket has unit pricing clearly displayed to allow you to do this).

There is an alternate description (whatever I think is unreasonable, without reference to define unreasonable). While I accept that some do have this definition its close to meaningless, there is always someone who will find something unreasonable with just about everything.

 

[PLANT]

Aldi not mention.... Yet?

 

[andye]

Understand about the washed spinach and rocket. Despite the obvious expense, I do find I waste less (and am more likely to eat) with the mixed salad bags

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Well I am confused I must admit - I've prolly seen a lot more hot summers than many here - but I learnt very young 'Caveat Emptor' - I was kinda under the impression pricing can and does vay wildly in all walks of life - are a few capsicums so unique?

 

[Deleted member]

Caveat Emptor seems to have gone by the board these days.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Caveat Emptor seems to have gone by the board these days.

How so?

Question was asked recently in Champagne thread - why magnum prices far exceed coughulative price 2 X single bottle - just cause it usually does - your choice - buy it or don't buy it - can't really see a Royal Commission on the horizon.

TBH GPH I think you need to get doctau onto this - he worked out how to milk Citi of 3 KF pts by doing multiple transfers - I reckon give him a crack and in no time flat he'll be getting those grossly overpriced capsicums for you for next to nothing.

 

[Deleted member]

Sorry. My comment was more about the nanny state. Caveat emptor was about being aware / beware , when dealing with transactions. We are going down the US route of relying on someone else to be responsible. It's an appalling state of affairs , but what can you do?

 

[JohnK]

According to their online site (obviously I can't pop into a local Woolworths)
$7.98
$2.66 / 1EA

Ouch!

Exactly. Don't understand why it needs to be that expensive. And even marked down it's expensive.

 

[Deleted member]

Have you tried getting a bag and putting one capsicum of each colour in? You'll still finish up with three capsicums of traffic light colour and by doing it yourself you won't have to pay the traffic light convenience tax.

With three different coloured capsicum in the one bag the poor register operator will be out on stress leave, but that's another matter entirely.

I never bag capsicums anyway. It's not the same as beans

 

[Cool Cat Phil]

Here's my dilemma. I'm shopping at Coles because woolies have dropped the ball, and reading other threads on this site , I realised I don't pay enough attention to how things are priced & what constitutes a bargain.

This is one only example , I haven't done a detailed analysis.

Red capsicums are $6.98 per kg

View attachment 59119

Yellow capsicums are $6.98 per kg

View attachment 59120

Green capsicums are $3.50 per kg

View attachment 59121

The "Traffic light set" are $12.00 per kg ($6.00 per bag)

View attachment 59122

I decided to weigh the traffic light bags ( not all of them) and they come in over 500g but under 600 g

So assuming uniform size and assuming the bags are closer to 600 g the cost of said traffic light bag should be around $3.50.
I remember the days SGN buying "bulk" I.e. More than one of something , suggested a saving.
This brazen attempt to extract more cash from the mathematically challenged is an affront. Forget GST on fresh food. How about a fair go?

No capsicums were hurt or injured in this investigation

Having met some of the suppliers of pre-packaged produce items to the supermarkets, Most of the speciality vegetables are sold by the supermarkets/green-grocers at a premium.
This includes , Pre-packaged Traffic light Capsicums, mini cucumbers, exotic mushrooms & garlic/ginger.
This is where margins are made and off-set by the low margin produce items such as bananas, carrots & broccoli which often make no profit once wastage is taken into account.

 

[nickfromeastryde]

Maybe we just need to go back to teaching our young simple maths at school though that's probably too much to ask for

 

[drron]

So I checked Aldi this morning.Red capsicums $5.99 a kg,no green capsicums but invariably they are cheaper.Package of 1 red,1 green $7.98 a kg.
So that is coles,wollies and Aldi all doing the same.
IGA and local fruit shed-no combination packages.

 

[whatmeworry]

So I checked Aldi this morning.Red capsicums $5.99 a kg,no green capsicums but invariably they are cheaper.Package of 1 red,1 green $7.98 a kg.
So that is coles,wollies and Aldi all doing the same.
IGA and local fruit shed-no combination packages.

Fruit shop near me $2.49/kg for capsicums.

 

[anat0l]

Not a whole lot of BS in supermarkets here.

Usually, if the package is not too big, the unit prices of the package is not significantly different at all from the by-weight loose variety. So you could probably expect that capsicums here sold loose would also have the same price as the tricolour prepacked variety.

The main reason that other varieties of lines in the same product may have different unit prices are:

• "Bio" or organic produce (more expensive)
• Very large packages, e.g. onions are a good example - loose onions have a higher unit price than a 2.5 kg sack of onions
• Different "brands" or "qualities". For example, there are "budget" brand onions and "higher quality" onions, which differ rather little except that the budget brand might have to be used quicker before spoiling.
• Ditto that for the origin of the product, e.g. local produce versus imported produce, even if both are sold loose and almost look exactly the same.
• In an extremely unlikely scenario, if they have to move that stock (e.g. close to spoilage) or for some reason they so happened to have some stock which they could offer really cheap, then perhaps one line might be sold cheaper than another very similar line. This is so rare - I have hardly seen it before myself. Even if capsicums were the weekly special, the tricolour package would usually still be discounted accordingly so they still have the same unit price.

 

[Mattg]

Spotted this at the Maroubra Coles yesterday:

 

[rainbowgirl]

Woolworths also offer this type of "bulk" pricing.

They sell apples either loose or in 1kg packs. The packs are often a higher per kilo price than the loose apples, depending on the variety.

Last week they had PInk Lady apples for $2.70 per kg loose. The packaged ones were around $5 per kilo. I prefer to get 1kg packs as I like to get small apples to put in lunch boxes, however I won't buy them if there is a price discrepancy like this. It's hard to find small apples in the loose apples so I end up only getting 6 apples per kilogram instead of the 8 apples per kilogram that would be in the packs.

A couple of years ago I complained about this and the Woolworths head office fruit and vegetable department said this wasn't supposed to happen. They sent me a $10 apology gift voucher in return. I'm guessing the policy has changed because the price discrepancies happen all the time now.

 

[andye]

Apples also more likely to be bruised if prepacked in my experience