The price of lamb

chillidoggy

Why is it that the price of a leg of lamb can be £24 one day, and £12 the next?

This happens all the time, and has been happening for a long time, now. Do they produce/process lamb in batches, or something? Is it supply and demand? And how come lamb that comes halfway round the poxy world from New Zealand can be cheaper than the meat produced here?

I just don't understand it.

Ravenous

Well once the lamb's dead, obviously the next leg is going to be cheaper.  Not much else they can do with it.

Nitefly

Never mind lamb, what about the price of fish?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40642230

The world and his wife will be wanting it, now it's "sustainable".  How can cod be "fully traceable"?  Are they all bar-coded or something?

boogieman

I've never understood the NZ vs homegrown thing either. Presumably there must be a huge difference in costs in rearing them or it's just down to economy of scale. 

When we were in Alaska recently one of the locals told us that Alaska ships all its salmon out to China to be gutted and processed and then it's shipped back. It's still cheaper to do it this way than to process it in their own country. 

axisus

They must be Baaaaaaaaaaaaamy if they think they are going to pull the wool over our eyes.

Dominic

why is Dorset Lamb much more expensive than Welsh Lamb ????
Because Welsh lamb lives on scraggy steep mountain/hillsides ....poor grazing and steep hills make for well muscled animals that are tough eating ...........gently undulating rich pasture of Dorset makes sweeter more tender lamb fed on chalk based grass.
NZ breeds not as good eating as UK indigenous.
Dorset New Seasons is most expensive.
French Lamb from West France and Limousin region is comparable - lot of science in livestock food farming.
Ironic but Camel meat in Saudi etc is also graded by region and local diet .
Don't even get started on Kobe Beef !

Guitar_Slinger

chillidoggy said:

Why is it that the price of a leg of lamb can be £24 one day, and £12 the next?

That'll be those half-price lamb promotions, non monsieur? 

About the alaska fish thing.  IIRC there was a programme on TV about UK chicken being frozen (to avoid VAT) then exported to Holland where is was make into chicken dippers, re-frozen (to avoid VAT) and sold in the UK.

I've also wondered why shops like Morrisons have whisky on offer, made in Scotland but imported by a company with an Aus/NZ address. 

stickyfiddle

Camel meat is fairly reliably terrible. 

Kobe is nice, but I'm not sure why half the world is so obsessed with wagyu and Angus. The best beef I've had by far is Japanese Hida beef, but they don't export it (or at least not to anywhere I've been). It's spectacular stuff.

RocknRollDave

If you buy it in doner meat form, like I do, you find the price stays fairly constant from one day* to the next.




(*Just to make it clear, I don't eat doner meat every day.)

Bellycaster

I'm not suggesting you do this or whether Supermarkets have found a way round it.....but......I know someone who is not averse to peeling of the price stickers on the heavier joints and swapping them for one on the lighter joints. He then uses the self service check out. He could be a Billy Liar though, I don't know. I tend to pay the stated price, cos I'm honest

CabbageCat

stickyfiddle said:

Kobe is nice, but I'm not sure why half the world is so obsessed with wagyu and Angus.

Kobe is Wagyu.

chillidoggy

Guitar_Slinger said:

chillidoggy said:

Why is it that the price of a leg of lamb can be £24 one day, and £12 the next?

That'll be those half-price lamb promotions, non monsieur? 

About the alaska fish thing.  IIRC there was a programme on TV about UK chicken being frozen (to avoid VAT) then exported to Holland where is was make into chicken dippers, re-frozen (to avoid VAT) and sold in the UK.

I've also wondered why shops like Morrisons have whisky on offer, made in Scotland but imported by a company with an Aus/NZ address. 

they're not really promotions, the prices just seems to change. It's the huge variation that I don't get.

Guitar_Slinger

Isn't that how Anthony Worral Thompson got done?  He was putting posh cheese through as something that cost much less - naughty boy! 

Edit - it was Tesco Henley-on-Thames and he was said to have been caught ordering blocks of cheese at the delicatessen counter and taking bottles of wine, but putting only some items through the scanner and walking out with the rest.  (thanks Google)

I understood the machine knows from the barcode how much an item should weight, so you can't scan a kinder egg and put  Eight Ace in there.

CabbageCat

Bellycaster said:

I'm not suggesting you do this or whether Supermarkets have found a way round it.....but......I know someone who is not averse to peeling of the price stickers on the heavier joints and swapping them for one on the lighter joints. He then uses the self service check out. He could be a Billy Liar though, I don't know. I tend to pay the stated price, cos I'm honest

Why does he bother paying at all? If he's happy to steal he could just walk out with what he wants.

Bellycaster

CabbageCat said:

Bellycaster said:

I'm not suggesting you do this or whether Supermarkets have found a way round it.....but......I know someone who is not averse to peeling of the price stickers on the heavier joints and swapping them for one on the lighter joints. He then uses the self service check out. He could be a Billy Liar though, I don't know. I tend to pay the stated price, cos I'm honest

Why does he bother paying at all? If he's happy to steal he could just walk out with what he wants.

I don't know.....He's only someone I know (not very well), he might be just a full of shit blagger. It was a while back too, so I'd have thought Supermarkets would have sussed it.

I don't agree with what he does/did. I expect he didn't steal something, in a "walk out without paying" sense cos that would likely result in being caught, whereas his "little trick" worked with little effort (if it not just hubris bullshit).

chillidoggy

My old mum worked at Sainsbury's for many years. She used to tell stories about people walking out with all kinds, including one bloke they caught with 6 beef joints, and another with no fewer than 10 bottles of whisky under his coat.

boogieman

chillidoggy said:

My old mum worked at Sainsbury's for many years. She used to tell stories about people walking out with all kinds, including one bloke they caught with 6 beef joints, and another with no fewer than 10 bottles of whisky under his coat.

Didn't he clank as he walked along?

I had a friend at school who nicked whole train sets from Woolworths. Those things came in massive boxes, god knows how he managed it. He did it a few times but never got caught. 

Guitar_Slinger

Someone at work said their son works in a supermarket and there was a gang of Eastern Europeans pulling the same trick in different places with only one security guard.

A well-dressed woman walks around the meat section, putting stuff in her trolley and a few minutes later, a scruffy group of men head straight for the booze aisle and start pissing about.  While the guard's busy in the booze aile, she walks out with a trolley full of meat.

capo4th

When the lamb joints are £10-12 buy 5 stick em in the freezer Sunday roasts are sorted.

gubble

I work for a meat wholesaler - the price of meat changes on a daily basis - quite dramatically sometimes.

What I can tell you is that supermarkets often sell joints of meat (the traditional sunday roast types) at a price much lower than they have paid for it themselves and more often than not for less than their supplier can buy it for. There's probably some loss leader, impulse buying stuff to do with this that I don't understand

gubble

Dominic said:

Don't even get started on Kobe Beef !

And then there's a Silkie Chikcen - that's even crazier.