Can I ask what the price of milk is, if you buy it in a supermarket or a shop in the Western Isles?
That may seem like a mundane measure, but it's often a better one for calibrating the excess that is charged for offshore produce, as milk is a universal need and also a perishable food.
The cooperative on benbecula has milk at a good price. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the same as the mainland stores. They have, or used to have a price equality policy.
ReplyDeleteI don't find food and drink prices here higher than they are on the mainland. That is a myth, that everything is sky high expensive on the shelves. There is sometimes a problem in the winter, if the ferries are delayed, and some goods empty off the shelves. However, everyone stocks up and has a big freezer here, so it isn't a real problem.
Once you get to know people here, you will be able to get the really fresh stuff. Seafood, lamb. All locally farmed, and hasn't been processed or driven several hundred miles, or flown from halfway around the world. I contest that local people can have a better diet here than on the mainland.
Passed through the Uists yesterday and paid £1.07 for a two litre milk. Can't remember which shop; it was on the spinal route.
ReplyDeleteI am happy to pay this and shop in local stores, where the money that goes in the till goes to the family who own and run it. It keeps the money in the local economy.
Can I recommend that you buy things like milk not from the big supermarkets, but from small, local stores? Tesco in particular rip off dairy farmers, some of whom are paid less than the cost of milk production. By buying milk from the big chains, you are helping to keep the farming industry in supermarket dictated poverty.
As Donald says - it's about the same as on the mainland in the main co-op and Tesco in Stornoway - I get it delivered so pay slightly more.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I would add is that the veg in the supermarkets isn't always the best but if you grow your own or get locally produced veg you can't go wrong.
Donald is right in that you can have a much better diet here than on the mainland.
I concur with Donald and Tony. The prices here for food are only marginally higher than those on the mainland, at worse.
ReplyDeleteThere is a misconception that everything here is much more expensive than on the mainland. Certainly petrol is, and that is an issue that needs to be investigated more. Food, however, is not. It is a shame that some tourists, when camping or caravaning, fill up with supplies in Portree or Oban or somewhere else before coming across the water, in the expectation of saving many pounds.
Perhaps this could be a myth punctured by the local tourist board? The Outer Hebrides - it's not expensive to visit here. Or something.
£1.09 for a large carton.
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