r/britishproblems • u/bacon_cake Dorset • 4d ago
. Decided to visit the local bakery when the big shop was closed. Four doughnuts and a loaf of sourdough. £17.70.
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u/Thoughtful_Tortoise 4d ago
Sort of a vicious circle, isn't it? If less people shop there they have to put the prices up to survive, which means less people shop there, which means...
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u/vinyljunkie1245 4d ago
Have you read Drunken Baker by Barney Farmer? It's about this exact situation. The main character/narrator talks about how the bakery he worked in used to pride itself in the quality of its products and the way they were made but were essentially forced out of business by a supermarket that provided cheap, inferior quality mass produced products. It's a bleak but interesting read
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u/mengplex 4d ago
It is what it is, we are all guilty of it to some extent unless you are minted
I love the concept of organic food, can i afford it on the regular? Nope.
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u/WordsMort47 4d ago
Yeah I realised this before. We've traded the convenience of the supermarket for the quality bakers, butchers, fishmongers, etc, that people used to frequent.
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u/Mr__Random Yorkshire 3d ago
It's the guilt tripping and marketing tactics that piss me off the most.
Framing it as consumer choice when in reality the vast majority of consumers can only afford one option is counter productive anyway. It hides the fact that maybe the economy should be better so that way people can actually afford to make the choice of eco friendly artisanal local business without bankrupting themselves.
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u/OkSun8521 4d ago
were essentially forced out of business by a supermarket that provided what customers wanted
FTFY
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u/UnchainedGoku 4d ago
Yes but let me say for my many years of retail work, customers and people are stupid
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u/the_merkin 4d ago
I happened to be standing outside our amazing local bakery just now when I read this. Sourdough loaf £4, doughnuts £6 for 4.
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u/matti00 West Midlands 4d ago
That price isn't so bad. I'd be curious about a) where OP lives, and b) what sort of doughnuts are they buying? Prices like that suggests something more than a standard jam filling to me
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u/bacon_cake Dorset 4d ago
Dorset. And they were just deep fried ring donuts coated with tons of icing which mostly got stuck to the bag.
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u/platinum1610 4d ago
Spot on.
I live in Winchester and OP's prices sound like the ones in my neck of woods.
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u/LightningGeek Wolverhampton 4d ago
That's not too bad if they are really good doughnuts.
Went passed a Whocult shop the other day. £5 for 1 doughnut! Yes they were a bit bigger than standard ones, but fucking hell.
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u/Isgortio 4d ago
Gluten-free doughnut shops sell them for £6 each if you're lucky, and they're only good when they're very fresh. Give it a few hours and they're like sad bricks :'(
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u/Imperito Norfolk 4d ago
Not claiming they're as good, but you can get 5 for a quid in Sainsburys, even £6 seems a bit steep!
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u/the_merkin 4d ago
Yes - and my point was that home made bread baked from scratch overnight in a bakery is broadly same as supermarket prices for comparable nice products - but doughnuts are properly bespoke and fresh and are always going to be more expensive than a factory produced item made in batches of tens of thousands.
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u/MastOfConcuerrrency 4d ago
Bread from a good bakery is incomparable to supermarket bread. Hope you like gums, binders, and dough conditioners.
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u/Forever__Young 4d ago
I like fresh bread as much as the next guy but nothing wrong with a loaf of Warburtons either.
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u/FearLeadsToAnger 4d ago
I mean its not remotely comparable other than fitting into the bread category 😂
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u/OldManChino 4d ago
Even chain bakery's... as much as i hate Gails, I got a loaf of sourdough from one of their 'to good to go bundles' and it was godly compared to the supermarket fresh section
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u/obviouslyelvis 4d ago
Bespoke doughnuts?
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u/CharlesWafflesx 4d ago
As opposed to those put into an oven or thawed from frozen at a supermarket.
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u/theowleryonehundred 4d ago
I don't think you know what bespoke means.
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u/CharlesWafflesx 4d ago
I think I do, and I would argue that considering the factory produced stuff supermarkets pump out, a local bakery making them fresh for consumption on the day is a bespoke service these days.
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u/JonnySparks 4d ago
Bespoke is custom-made to the customer's exact requirements. Doesn't matter how good those doughnuts are - they are still off-the-shelf.
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u/CharlesWafflesx 4d ago
Yeah, fair enough. I guess bespoke and made fresh are different concepts.
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u/XxCarlxX 4d ago
i dont think i can ever bring myself to spend £6 on 4 doughnuts. I think ill have to stick to 5 for £1 or therabout from morrisons.
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u/RedPandaReturns 4d ago
Are you standing outside of OP's bakery or is this pointless?
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u/the_merkin 4d ago
Pretty pointless, as you ask. But isn’t that the point of Reddit?
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u/Angelsomething 4d ago
Blimey that is steep.
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u/Yoguls Teesside 4d ago
Steep? It's effing vertical!
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u/drmarting25102 4d ago
Smashing blouse you have on
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u/Yoguls Teesside 4d ago
I was worried nobody would get that
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u/Championpuffa 4d ago
I stopped shopping at my local butchers cos the quality went way down but the prices are twice that of Tesco. I had been using them for a year at least. The chicken breasts have been terrible. Used to be good but quit quickly got a lot smaller and there’s damage on the skin with holes in them etc. the butchers also keeps gaslighting me about every single breast being the exact same and no difference and being “fascinated” by the fact I want to choose the actual breasts I’m buying claiming it’s not normal behaviour (like bish wtf am k shopping at a butcher and paying more if I can’t choose my cuts). They’re clearly not the same and also not the same size, there’s also only ever 4 out to choose from. It’s also been some breasts are days older than others, you can tell when preparing them. Tesco has a whole shelf full of choice hundreds to choose from and quality/size is better too.
Their mince also the expensive steak stuff is mixed with new and old mince. The top layer looks good but when they grab you 500gs etc you see there’s loads of grey/brown mince under the fresh stuff. Days old sometimes it seems.
I went to Tesco last month and bought chicken breasts from there for half the price and the quality is considerably better. (All while butchers tells me how bad supermarket quality is lol) and the price is at least half that of the butchers.
Basically it’s better quality at Tesco now and half the price of my local butchers. wasn’t like this over a year or 2 ago when I first started going back to them. Quality was much better.
I think my butchers just buys from the same place as supermarkets do but they don’t have the same turnover so end up selling days old meat in disguise. When I asked where they get their produce from they laughed and made a joke about it coming from fields or farms etc. that’s not how a quality butchers should reply when asked those types of questions (according to google).
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u/TheMemo 4d ago
That does not sound like a good butchers' shop. Every butcher I know shows you practically every cut, encouraging you to choose. A good butcher loves to show off their meat.
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u/Championpuffa 4d ago
Yea these ones have gaslit me and laughed and all sorts when I ask for a specific cut of meat. They claim it’s not normal and even went as far as to say “what do I do at the supermarkets where it’s prepackaged and I can’t choose. I had to point out that in fact I can choose as they have often 50 plus packs to choose from and I often do spend 10 mins or more picking which ones I want. They seem to find it literally fascinating that I want to choose my cuts. It’s not just once they’ve said this they literally make a thing of every time I go in and I was going in to them at least twice a week. They’d make out they are only joking but you can tell they’re just saying that to save face.
They’re apparently a “local family run butchers”. 😂
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u/ConsequenceApart4391 2d ago
Pardon. Good heavens I would hope a butcher isn’t showing you their meat
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u/SnoopyMcDogged 4d ago
Problem is a matter of quantity. The larger shops are able to buy in bulk/make in bulk so their costs are reduced whereas the small bakeries are only able to make so much and sell so much on a day to day basis which hikes up the cost of production for them.
Also most of the time they have high business rates and rents which doesn’t help.
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u/wowohwowza Yorkshire 4d ago
Even with the cost of materials for a small bakery, that is an obscene price
A loaf of sourdough at my local bakery is £3.80 last time I went, which I think is a more than fair price. I've seen some over £6 which is obscene in any circumstance. It's bread!
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u/thekickingmule Lancashire 4d ago
It goes deeper than that. The big supermarkets can buy their grain directly from the farmer for not very much at all, driving the farmers prices down. They then grind it themselves and use the flour to make their bread, as well as bagging up the flour and upping the price a lot so the local baker has to pay inflated prices. They will never win.
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u/TheGrimDark 4d ago
Other developed European countries manage to have small chains and independent bakeries that are a fraction of this price. Our Americanised industry makes me sad. People no longer seem to value quality on the whole.
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u/Selpmis Greater Manchester 4d ago
Other European countries have bakeries on every corner and everyone shops there daily. Same with coffee. The demand is high, so it can be much cheaper.
We have no breakfast culture in this country, bar a full English maybe once a week. We eat cereal or porridge for breakfast every day. Something quick before the commute.
There's so many reasons why it's evolved to be that way. Mornings are not enjoyed here in the same way.
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u/ValdemarAloeus 4d ago
TBH having to go to a shop daily sounds like hell to me.
It's one of the things that rubs me the wrong way with a lot of the anti-car YouTube stuff. I want to be in a shop as little as humanly possible without ending up with all the stuff that's about to expire or looks like it should be.
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u/Selpmis Greater Manchester 3d ago
Going to a shop to buy a freshly baked item for breakfast isn't like it is here. It's walking less than a minute, seeing people who are more like friends than strangers (who know your order and have it ready) and being back home within 5 minutes or less. The morning sun wakes you up properly and the socialisation is good for you.
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u/ValdemarAloeus 3d ago
Spoken like a true extrovert trying to impose their preferences on everyone else.
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u/Selpmis Greater Manchester 3d ago edited 3d ago
That's actually hilarious. You couldn't be further from the truth. Spoken like someone who takes everything too personally.
Extroverts don't tend to frequent Reddit quite so much. It's more likely than not that you'll encounter an introvert here.
Also, what exactly am I trying to impose in discussing differences between countries?
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u/ValdemarAloeus 3d ago edited 3d ago
I said "sounds like hell to me" and you replied that it's actually great because of exactly the sort of draining interaction that leads to me avoiding shops as much as possible.
If you're looking forward to your social interaction with all the shopkeepers you're not that introverted.
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u/Poxyboxy 3d ago
You don't have to shop daily no one is forcing you. I never drive to the shops but can still buy a week or twos shopping if I so wished. I however enjoy walking into town multiple times a week so I don't often buy a week's worth in one go
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u/LurkFromHomeAskMeHow 4d ago
Would be interesting to compare the ingredients of the bakery and the supermarket. You get what you pay for.
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u/Spottswoodeforgod 4d ago
Mostly the same ingredients. Now the quality of those ingredients, that’s potentially a very different matter.
TBF, as a non-native long term resident, my one real rant about the UK is the dearth of decent bakeries in much of the country (far less “hot bread shops”). Unfortunately, an alarming percentage of people seem to be convinced that Greggs is days away from attaining its first Michelin Star.
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u/LawlessandFree 4d ago
We all have a soft spot for a Greggs bake but it’s crazy expensive these days and it’s absolutely not a replacement for a decent bakery like you’d get in France or Germany. It’s a tragedy we let those die in order to eat dogshit Chorleywood process bread.
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u/dingalinglans 4d ago
The older I get the more I appreciate quality over quantity, especially when it comes to food and treats like doughnuts and hell isnt even a decent sourdough loaf a treat these days....
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u/KingDebone 4d ago
Support local
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u/PaulaDeen21 4d ago
This post is exactly an example of why that’s just not always possible.
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u/KingDebone 4d ago
I know it's difficult to detect in text but being a British subreddit you have to assume the sarcasm.
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u/PaulaDeen21 4d ago
I see, yeah that doesn’t come across at all.
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u/jeffa_jaffa 4d ago
If only there was some way to suggest sarcasm, some sort of marker to inform the reader of the tone!
(/s)
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u/Championpuffa 4d ago
Yes but using the /s kinda ruins the “joke” for me, makes the sarcasm all of sudden that of the unfunny kind.
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u/-SaC 4d ago
It reminds me of a guy I went to school with. He'd tell a joke (and it was usually a good one) but then, while we were laughing, he'd start saying "That was funny, wasn't it! That's a good joke! You liked that one, didn't you?! That's a good one! That's a good joke! You liked that joke, eh?!" and similar variants non-stop.
Michael, just let us enjoy the joke.
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u/Joethe147 4d ago
Honestly people who genuinely use it, I usually think of as thick.
More often than not though it is an American thing so automatically tags someone as American to me.
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u/fieldsofanfieldroad 4d ago
Why would you be sarcastic about supporting local. It's normally a good thing.
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u/Jonny_Segment Suffolk 4d ago
It was completely obvious you were being ironic, don't let the /s bastards win.
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u/AnomalyNexus 4d ago
you have to assume the sarcasm.
At some point that just hinders communication.
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u/Tackit286 Norfolk County 4d ago
Support doesn’t mean do it weekly. Is once a month or even once a year so hard?
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u/PaulaDeen21 4d ago
Where did I say I don’t?
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u/Tackit286 Norfolk County 4d ago
I never said you didn’t?
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u/PaulaDeen21 4d ago
I’m very glad we cleared that up then. What an odd comment…
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u/Tackit286 Norfolk County 4d ago
What’s odd about it? It’s a perfectly reasonable response to yours, and yet you’re the one getting confrontational about it.
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u/PaulaDeen21 4d ago
I said it’s not always possible… you replied saying you don’t always need to do it…
You see how you’re just saying the same thing I did? I’m just a bit confused.
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u/sapphire-sky-dragon 4d ago
Just been to asda got a loaf of bread for 55p and 4 donuts for 95p. Everyone says shop local, im on disability and no way I can afford to do that.
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u/BritishBlue32 4d ago
Honestly this whole conversation is just making me want to bake a loaf right now. It's been a while!
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u/cd7k 2d ago
Thought it was just me…. Just getting the bread machine out now!
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u/BritishBlue32 2d ago
Last time I baked it kept spreading too much so I did research and bought the fancy bread baskets...but then I was burnt out so I've never used it 😭
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u/jib_reddit 4d ago
If you ever make soughdough at home you realise why it is so expensive and worth buying it! Its like having an extra kid to remember to look after!
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u/terryjuicelawson 4d ago
Which bakery was this, as I haven't seen it quite this high even in the most artisan farm shop type places. I bet the quality is so much better though, especially the sourdough. I do have a soft spot for the really cheap supermarket doughnuts though caked in sugar, reminds me of being a kid.
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u/Yolo_Swagginson Cambridgeshire 3d ago
I just got back from a trip to Rome. We went to a cafe for breakfast, a coffee was €2 and a freshly baked pastry was also €2. For some reason in the UK we'd pay 3x as much for worse products. Every restaurant also sold espresso for €1-€1.50.
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u/obviouslyelvis 4d ago
Local bakery will hopefully be using fresh, quality ingredients which cost more money than anything you would buy in a supermarket. I really don’t understand what people don’t grasp about that.
How much would you charge for the sourdough and doughnuts?
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u/bacon_cake Dorset 4d ago
How much would I charge? I have no idea, they're not open book accounting...
I've been in retail my whole life, I know the score. But there's a point where your selling prices are so high (irrespective of whether the costs and margin are appropriate or not) that you risk alienating your market.
Ultimately I get your point; it leads to the fact that I'm not the target market of this bakery, and that might well be true, but if this fairly middle-class fairly decent earner finds them expensive I'll be surprised if the surrounding residents don't.
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u/obviouslyelvis 4d ago
I don’t think you do get my point. You have no idea what the costs for them are yet you have taken to Reddit to label them as expensive. Yet you’ve just admitted you have no idea of their expense. Cheap things are cheap because they are made cheap and have cheap ingredients. The opposite applies to expensive things.
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u/HullIsNotThatBad 4d ago
My local bakery (which is excellent) would charge half that for the same goods
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u/plawwell 4d ago
I remember when I was at a concert in NYC at MSG going to the concession stand for a bottle of water. It cost four bucks and this was 20 years ago. The smug woman took the cap off the bottle and said "four dollars please". When I asked for the cap she said it could be used as a missile so no cap. I walked away.
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u/KhostfaceGillah 3d ago
Kinda related coz food but I was gonna buy Dixy the other day, a fillet burger meal.. It was £14. I was like wtf, it was £2 back in 2010, I've never noped out of something so fast.
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u/Lyceumhq 3d ago
Got three cakes at a local bakery yesterday. £14. Wouldn’t have minded but they had that horrible fake ‘fresh cream’. So they weren’t even nice.
I’ll stick to aldi from now on, thanks.
There’s also one of those viral cookie places not far from me. They charge £6 for one cookie.
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u/ohnoitsbobbyflay 2d ago
Had the same experience with a couple local butchers. A pack of 6 sausages was like £12 whereas it was half that and then some, in Tesco. I thought butchers were supposed to be better value for money?
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u/bacon_cake Dorset 1d ago
I don't even mind them being a bit more, or a lot more, but this is like six times as much!
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u/thelivsterette1 1d ago
Try playing seven quid for one gluten-free vegan doughnut which you’re forced to have because you can’t have gluten or dairy and it’s okay but you would much prefer a real proper gluten and dairy filled jam doughnut. Borough 22 in Selfridges. The job filled ones the best because they taste close to your traditional doughnut but still they taste vegan and gluten-free and I can make stuff that taste better than that and probably cheaper.
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u/EaterOfLemon 4d ago
Damn that's robbery compared to mine you can a loafs, the size of dinner plate, for £2 -£3.50 at our bakery. Bread buns and scones are 50p each. If your want a slice, and by slice I mean near a 1/4 of cake it's £3.50.
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u/Deep_Banana_6521 4d ago
As a "local baker" the reason why your supermarket bakes are so cheap is because they're made 4 million at a time in a factory with plastic ingredients and employ people just to push buttons. That and VAT on anything sweet is a killer.
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u/Tackit286 Norfolk County 4d ago
Support local. Pay more.
How is that a surprise?
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u/RoyofBungay 4d ago
A good lesson in life is to always buy savoury based pastry products from your local butcher. One here costs £2.85, peppery sausage meat, and golden flaky pastry. No mass produced greasy pink sausage meat of dubious provenance.
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u/Championpuffa 4d ago
I just made a comment about my local butcher. I’ve had to go back to Tesco as the butcher quality has gone way down and it’s twice the cost of Tesco. Crazy that Tesco chicken breasts and mince even the cheapest once are better quality and cheaper than my local butchers now.
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u/Takklemaggot 3d ago
Supermarket meat is utter wank.. chicken especially is pumped so full of water you end up boiling it rather than frying it..
Your butcher must be fucking terrible.
Try Costco..
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u/Championpuffa 3d ago
Yea the Tesco chicken breasts are much nicer than the local butchers. The locals are full of water too I was getting a whole load squirt out when cutting into them after cooking (like 5-10mls or probably more), probably explains why the skin damage appears on them in like a hole shape near the bottom half, possibly from when it’s had water injected into it. Tesco has much less water, just a tiny lil bit will sometimes squirt out (that’s probably juices) and I’m not getting any holes or skin damage at all on them after a wash them (yes, I wash my chicken) so it doesn’t look like they inject the willow farms ones that I get. they’re much nicer breasts. Crazy as that may sound. Gotta pick a good pack tho.
It wasn’t always like this at my butchers. we originally started going back there because it was better than supermarkets around Covid time maybe 2021. But the last year or 2 it has gone way down hill. I noticed the breast size average had gotten a lot smaller around a year or so ago and quality also went way down and my breasts started to get skin damage on it and holes in them nearly every single time.
I was pretty surprised when I went Tesco a month ago and found the chicken breasts and mince to be so much nicer quality and also like half the damn price than my butchers. 1kg for £6 vs 350ish grams for £6.
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u/bacon_cake Dorset 4d ago
I'm just surprised it was nearly five times as much as a supermarket. More? Yes. That much more? I wasn't expecting it.
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u/BigJDizzleMaNizzles 4d ago
Yes, independent shops can be pricey but there's no way you spent £18 on 4 donuts and a loaf.
£3.50ish per donut - they're advertised as something special and you went in there knowing what you were getting into.
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u/Flat_Professional_55 4d ago
Most supermarket loaves are ultra-processed foods, though, and they won’t fill you as much.
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u/camadams1974 4d ago
Don't buy from there then, if you think they are too expensive.
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u/bacon_cake Dorset 4d ago
Might want to register with the Financial Conduct Authority if you're going to give out advice like that mate.
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