Daily Archives: July 6, 2011 9:24 pm

Life without supermarkets #1: Goodbye Danone

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The alternative to Danone

The first thing to go in my ‘no supermarket’ month is my fix of Danone rhubarb yoghurt. I’ll live. The best substitute is natural yoghurt with stewed plums, both of which I can get from Daily Fresh in Tooting.

As it happens, they also have wonderful fresh apricots, and I need bananas. So I get a bag of plums, bag of apricots and 5 bananas. Price? £4.04, or rather £4.00 because they let me keep the 4p.  That’s something you won’t get in Sainsbury’s.  Price of the equivalent items in Sainsbury’s, according to their online store? £8.31 (based on their prices for loose, hand-picked fruit). I wasn’t expecting to save over £4 in the process.

For the stewed plums I just de-stone them and cut them into halves or quarters, put in a pan with about 2 cm of water in, a  few cloves and the rind of an orange. If I had some cheap red wine or port, I’d use that instead of the water. In fact, I’d almost go out and get the red wine, because even a bit of it turns plums magical. Put a lid on and stew for probably 15 minutes, I’m never sure.  You could add sugar, but they hardly need it.

Verdict on day 1? 

Painless, and it saved me £4.  I also had something nicer to eat than a Danone yoghurt.

 See also: 

MPs battle to save the nation’s high streets (Independent)

July challenge: No supermarkets for 30 days

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A friend posted a link to Matt Cutts’ TED talk ‘Try something new for 30-days‘ and I was itching to set myself a challenge. I’ve done 30-day challenges before, like blogging on music for Advent calendars, and taking a photo every day for a month, and it’s fun. So my latest challenge is to try and last 30 days without shopping at places like Tesco, Sainsburys & M&S.  I am already furious at the way Sainsburys display pricing in such a mixture of ways that it’s difficult to compare like for like for the customer (see earlier post on courgette pricing).  Via War-on-Want’s campaign ‘Fighting Supermarket Power‘ I came across this interesting article in which  Tesco & Sainsburys are accused of distorting job creation figures in order to get permission for more stores. I’ve often come fuming out of a supermarket, inwardly swearing I’ll never shop there again, but had to concede that it’s difficult.

But is it? That’s my challenge. Although it’s nothing to do with IT or music or dance, that’s what I’m going to try and do except when I’m shopping for someone else.