Meal deal - food waste

66Mustang

Probably "nothing story" of the century but thought I'd try to get a discussion going...

Was in a supermarket recently and we were buying stir fry ingredients.

Veggies - £1.50
Sauce - £1.15
Noodles - £1

Or special deal - buy 1 of each for £2.50.

We only wanted veggies and sauce, which came to £2.65, we didn't want noodles.

I said pick up some noodles because then we'd only pay £2.50 under the offer. They are basically paying us 15p to take the noodles.

Person I was with hates food waste and said no they'd rather pay 15p extra.

I said put the noodles in the food bank collection bin then. But we looked and they seem to only want long life foods.

I know it's only 15p but I'm sure there are other instances of this happening. Do you think it's right to encourage food waste?

Sandy_123

I see your point you can add the noodles to the stir fry. 
Its the same with family size items or buy 2 which is not much more then the item you want

66Mustang

@Sandy_123

Family size or sale items usually require you to spend a bit extra money, though, so if you don't want extra you can choose to buy less and save some money

With this offer they were actually paying you to take an extra item and then just bin it

It'd make more sense if any 2 items in the deal cost less than £2.50 so that it didn't disincentivise people to minimise food waste

Hope that makes sense

66Mustang

I agree @Teddybear12 I also hate wasting money, though.

Sadly (actually - fortunately!) we don't have any neighbours who would have needed them.

We ended up just taking them and I will have them on their own or maybe boiled up with a stock cube for lunch one day.

janer1967

I agree in a way bur majority of people would use the noodles in sine way I don't think they are encouraging food waste with this type of offer its more down to personal choice 

durhamjaide2001

I struggle with meal deals because I can't sometimes have what's on the meal deals so I end up spending more than the meal deal but it's harder when people temp you to get the meal deal. 

Cartini

In my mind, it`s not encouraging food waste.  It`s offering all 3 items at a reduced price; it`s the consumers choice whether they take 1, 2 or all 3 items, 3 of which will save them 15p.

The problem with these "deals", especially with the cost of living crisis at the moment, is that people will be tempted to buy x,y and z to save w; that`s where the waste may come in.  In this case the waste could be called "collateral damage" as opposed to the shop / supermarket encouraging food wastage.