The price of fruit & vegetables

After reading the Herald and listening to the radio this morning I wonder what others view on this is.
Personally I very rarely buy my fruit/veggies from the supermarket, mainly due to price. I generally get them from the veggie shop or buy seasonal stuff from people who have it in front of their house (grapefruit at the moment for example)
We also have a veggie garden ourselves so grow a few things. Not so much at the moment, more over summer though.

Some people say they can't do this as they have small sections and/or are renting. Our patch is 2x4m and I also grow lots in pots and planter boxes.

I believe some veggies are very expensive in supermarkets, especially if they are not in season. However I don't really have a problem with this as I just won't buy them from there in that case.
We eat fairly healthy and have a lot of fruit and veggies, it costs me between $15-20 a week (myself and DH) for that and I really don't think that is too much.

I think the article was saying that on some fruit & veg the supermarkets slap as much as a 500% markup on the cost price, which does seem very high. In saying that, a lot of it is because we don't shop seasonally anymore and want to be able to buy our favourite vegetables whether they are in season here or not, meaning they're imported from somewhere else. I must admit I was horrified to get home one day to realise that I had brought kiwifruit that had been imported from Italy!

It is such a media beat up. The supermarkets make a loss on some things so need to increase the markup on others to make a profit. Consumers need to shop around if they want a good deal.

I guess the labour in cutting it in half and the glad wrap for wrapping it??

I don't think I'd ever use up a whole cabbage!

I try go to the market, but its a 30min drive & so busy i dont even bother 1/2 the time.

I normally just buy whatever fruit & veges i want from the supermarket. I try go for what is on special but we need to eat it so i pay.

There is the odd week ill refuse to buy cauli $4 brocolli $3 spinach $5 etc etc so then we will live off frozen veges for a week.

I normally have broc & cauli frozen just in case.

Liz I want to know about your market cos I don't think it would be far from me to go to.

Is that the market that got moved to clovertea tavern carpark?

I shop at both.. sometimes I find the F&V shop cheaper and other times the supermarket is... I find the quality better at the F&V shops though...

Same with meat, usually go to MB but even that's getting expensive.... so I now chance it at the supermarket...

I shop at the local fruit and vege shop which is next to the mad butcher. By doing meat and vege seperately from mad butcher and vege shop next door we have cut more than $40 from our weekly shop. We are a family of five with a 13year old DD, 9 year old DS and a 4year old DD. So older kids that eat more. My 4 year old scoffs veges and we often have to say no more veges until you eat some meat.

I spend $20 per week on veges which normally includes 2 supermarket sized bags of apples (my son eats 2-3 per day so lucky they are cheap at the moment) pumpkin, bananas, brocolli, cauli, carrots, pak choy and silverbeet. Sometimes I can get a bag of spuds as well if needed.

I went into foodtown to compare and cauli last week were $2.99 mine was .79c Apples I paid ,79c per kilo they were selling a 1.5 kgs bag for $4.99 compared with my $1 for the same weight. Considering I buy 5 kgs that was a big saving. Silverbeet was 99c at my place and $2.99 at foodtown.   I find that the veges at the supermarket aren't as fresh although the apples are perfect and don't have the odd blemish like my cheapies.

SMoody...that's half our weekly shopping bill, which includes formula and nappies, plus food for us!!! And your vege garden is going to be half the size of our house

We are going to start shopping at F&V stores, mainly because the one just down the road from us has been taken over by the owners of another one in town...it used to be really crap fruit & veges, but the new owners are well known for their quality and prices (i.e. we just spent $2.98 on a pumpkin at Woolworths, they're 99c at the F&V shop), but their town store just wasn't convenient for us because of their opening hours.