I had time to spare so did a shopping list comparison at Tesco,
Bread, porridge,cornflakes,flour,jam tarts,soy sauce,rich tea,pizza bases,spaghetti,choc chip cookie,lasagne sheet, crumpets,gravy,frozen pastry, yorkshire puds,
Normal Cost £9.15 we have to pay £28.99 and all because our body is not liking gluten, what a rip off xx
Yes I think of the differences in the prices every time I go shopping but haven't ever added it up. So it costs us almost 3 times more, add to that if you also cannot eat dairy, as the alternative milks etc are very expensive as well. I think in the USA you can claim on your tax for the food you buy if you have CD but they don't get prescriptions.
I wrote to Rip off Britain (BBC TV Show) last year about the price of gluten free food after they did a show on how much vegetarians were being charged in restaurants, but heard nothing back
Maybe we should all write to Rip off Britain to see if anyone gets a response
Hi Again yes if we could get more people to contact them maybe they could investigate it for us. The last time I and I know at least one other wrote to them which was over a year ago, it was triggered by someone posting on a facebook page that Tesco were selling products for much more than Asda. I think they were the BFree bread rolls ( £5 for 4) and Genius Pain au chocolat which Tesco were charging 90p more for. I seem to recall they eventually said that a buyer had made a mistake and the rolls were being reduced in price.
It probably does cost more to produce our food safely, however I think that as time has gone on and bakers such as Warburtons and Genius have now got dedicated facilities then it is only the ingredients that are costing a bit more and these again are becoming more widely available. Is it a case of them all pricing to match each other and keeping prices high or it is the supermarkets having a large mark up on the products, probably a bit of both.
I met an elderly lady in Sainsburys last year who wasn't diagnosed so couldnt get any prescription food. She was on a pension and both her and her husband were gf and df and she was saying how expensive it all was for them, it is very difficult for people on low incomes.
I appreciate that as coeliacs we are a smaller market (1 in 500 or whatever that stat is) making GF a niche product but it does very much feel like a rip off.
GF porridge is my example £2.50 in Asda, Sainsbury and Tesco for a small bag against the same money for non GF industrial sized bag! I have looked around online for an alternative and I could buy in bulk but it seems a bit extreme to order 20kg of porridge oats!
Whilst I'm complaining the GF ranges in all the supermarkets has got so much better in the last few years, and the genius bread/rolls are actually tasting like bread.
What we really need is a GF entrepreneur who can launch a great value free from website where we can order all our food from at the best prices (without the delivery charges). If they do it right they will have customers for life.
I agree that the prices for GF foods are too high but the extra costs are partly due to the expensive laboratory tests that have to be done all the way through process from farm to the shops to prove the foods are GF. Even a simple bag of oats will be tested at couple of time before release. A more complicated finished item like chocolate chip cookies will have every individual ingredient tested plus the final product. Sadly the costs are passed down to the consumer, who doesn't have a choice but to pay the inflated price.
I totally agree with you and the people who have replied. I think I have had to become a bit more savvy in the way I approach my GF shopping. Anything that I can get on prescription I will. Anything reduced in the GF aisle I will buy! Any free samples or coupons I will use. Any alternatives to GF I will try, for example, GF cereals are not necessary, many supermarket own brands of corn or rice based cereal are listed in the directory and are a fraction of the cost. I also make cakes rather than spend £3-£4. I have started to choose the GF luxuries wisely such as granola and croissants.
Hi Coeliacandhappy,
What directory? Coeliac UK? I thought own brands of corn f'lakes and rice crispies we now off limits since the standards got tighter?
you can get a book of sorts from coeliacs uk but have to pay to renew after a year so mine is an old er book, but also own brands have a little gluten in the which is allowed but even that can be bad for people who are very sensertive to gluten like i can be
The latest edition of Coeliac UK food and drink directory proves itself invaluable. Most supermarket own brand rice and corn based breakfast cereals are included in here. My daughter eats any of these without side effects, however, as mentioned in another post, they do contain traces of barley malt flavouring which can affect some.
Hi Jill, gluten free processed foods are more expensive than their wheat equivalent but are cheaper than prescription foods are to the NHS.
A few years ago someone posted the actual cost to the NHS for gf foods and 500g Juvela codex wheat starch costs the NHS £6.50 someone else also reported that Boots offered to get them Juvela wheat starch for over £9.00 for 500g without a prescription.
And in Sweden where they don't get food on prescription they can Buy 500g Semper codex wheat starch for around £2.00 (it was 2 Euros and 30c at the time)
gluten-free.semper.com/prod...
Semper is Juvela's sister company and are both owned by the Hero food group so it is the same thing.
And this is why the NHS is cutting what is prescribe able and why there are those who would like to stop all gluten free food on prescription. So sadly coeliac who are dependent on prescription food are the ones who will suffer the most because of the high prices the NHS has to pay.
In my opinion this price difference is wrong and not fair on the coeliac recipient nor the NHS.
Really good point about what the NHS have to pay for prescriptions. I think we should lobby for credit/tokens to spend on GF bread, pasta, etc. It would save the NHS from having to administer prescriptions, and the £millions for setting up supply agreements with these GF companies. We would then be able to choose where we spend the tokens forcing the suppliers to make better or cheaper products.
I agree.
God knows how much NHS's bill is for GF prescritions, but if prescritions were to stop and all coeliacs were to get £x tokens instead per omnth, it would facilitate competition and prices would drop.
Wouldn't it be good if the tax man gave us a tax reduction that we could use to buy gluten free alternatives or naturally gluten free foods? Those who don't pay tax for whatever reason could be given an allowance. They give everyone over a certain age a Winter Fuel Allowance every year regardless of whether we need it or not, and a bus pass. Mine goes into fuel for the Harley, showing how ridiculous it is.
Hey, I really like your Harley Phil, so nice one and why on earth do you have a bus pass? LOL.
This week I spent £19.00 on GF from Tesco. I managed to buy a large bag of Ancient Grain Crisps made by UDI for £2.00. I love the tiger Bloomer also made by Udi. A loaf lasts me a week if husband decides to eat it, well a few loaves a week I bought tesco's GF Cornflakes, some ready made GF pies, fish cakes, chicken strips and a few other things. As we eat a lot of fruit and I bake my own cakes and cookies, I buy my GF flour in multiples via Glebe Farm. Since I have been savvy shopping and we are on a limited income (Superannuation) my grocery bill has dropped some £50.00 a week. We have two cooked meals a day and just a very light supper. We don't snack except for fruit. hubby grizzles about the electricity bill, I have told him, we eat rubbish, I get very sick, or we eat healthy and for the difference in the fuel bills, we are still coming out ahead every quarter. I belong to a sewing group, my turn to take the cake, no-one realises they are eating gluten free. I have a giggle because everyone else scoots down to Waitrose of Sainsbury's to buy something GF for me.
I do think the price of the foods over here are more expensive than when I comparison in Australia and US. I was able to eat out three times a week while in OZ last month. A lot of the fast food chains in OZ and the US are waking up to the necessity of having GF foods on the menu. Three MacDonalds stores in the Hunter Valley are GF. These are franchises and the owner is waking up that he has a customer base of GF eaters.
Does the tiger bread taste like bread, as even when i make my own i have to toast it to eat it and add pumpkin seeds
Not quite, but it is edible untoasted when bought while fresh. we look at the expiry date and tend to buy when it has been freshly delivered. I find Udi;s the best. I am a fan of Genius breads, but they don't do a Tiger Loaf.
"Rip off Britain" have just done a short report on the price of ready made gf foods (April 24)
Talking about bread,they said that there are more potential ingredients (different starches etc) which have to be used and they have to be sourced from many places. So more complicated and costly than regular bread.
I gave up on ready made gf foods including bread many years ago. Can't stomach the additives. I buy gf flour to make what I want, and have a protein breakfast rather than breakfast cereals. Processed foods, both gluten-full or gluten-free, are not much of a healthy choice and best avoided, if possible.
I agree about moving away from processed food. Going gluten free totally changed how I shopped and cooked, mainly because once I started having to read the ingredients lists I was a bit put off and went back to basics! I hardly ever eat bread at all these days - though I eat loads of rice and potatoes. It's still expensive because I'm buying organic and stuff where I didn't before, but I do feel massively better on it.
Yesterday on BBC1 The Rip off Britain girls have been doing a programme on food and they did cover GF foods and why they cost so much. Hang on to your seats...it's because they have to add so many more ingredients to make our food palatable,,,have I got news for them... I used to bake my own bread but since having to be GF, I haven't, so next week I am experimenting to see if I can replicate my favourite Tiger Bread. None of the cakes I make have to have extra ingredients, I am still sure it because we are niche market and they have a captive audience so can charge what they like to cater for us.
Hi everyone, I'm new to this group but not new to gluten free. Just briefly, Ive actually been diagnosed twice. When I was little (I'm 60 now) there were no definitive tests to prove Coeliac disease, diagnosis was by symptoms alone and then GF diet recommended. At that time it was also assumed that you would 'grow out of it' (of course we know differently now) and so when I was about 7 years old, I was 'weaned' back onto normal food. However I don't remember ever being a particularly well child or teenager for what is now obvious reasons. But in my late teens, my sister was bringing home chinese takeaways (had just become very popular) and other 'foreign' food and I noticed strange symptoms with many of these foods. Decided to ask for testing and had a blood test which was negative, but because I had symptoms and previous history I was sent for endoscopy. Diagnosis straightaway, Coeliac Disease, clear as a bell. So that was 1982, so been on a gluten free diet since that time. Things have really changed a lot, there was nothing much in the shops then at all and only minimal GF items available via the chemist. Also eating out was virtually impossible, restaurants, pubs etc were not aware of gluten free at all.
I think I've read most of the posts and would like to comment on the prescription items. Very occasionally I order a couple of bits via local pharmacy but it always seems to be a painful process so I usually just buy what I need either from the internet or from the supermarket. Some years ago, I did a lot of work with my local Coeliac group and got invited to a volunteer's conference in London with Coeliac UK. We were split into groups for various discussions and one was related to prescription items. For some reason I decided to voice my opinion that I feel prescription items should be abolished. Well if had a turbulent response and got shouted at from all directions with comments like 'that will never happen' but actually it already is. Many areas have restrictions in place already on how many items people can have.
But here's my theory (which I'm sure many will disagree with) if all GF manufacturers had to put their products on the open market (even those like Glutafin and Juvela who only supply on prescription currently) they would have to flood the market with their products and this would eventually drive the prices down as they would all be in healthy competition with all other manufacturers, in the same way that all other manufacturers are all the time.
The other thing I would personally prefer would be to do away with 'Free From' sections in supermarkets. Our products could be shelved alongside their 'normal' counterparts, for example: all gluten free biscuits in a small gf section alongside 'normal' biscuits and there would be a price ticket either in a different colour to the normal ones or with GF marked clearly on it. Having a separate Free From counter tends to make us think that we have to look at those items when we might not necessarily look at them if they were in with mainstream products. Plus there are so many naturally gluten free products in supermarkets, having a Free From counter takes the focus away from those naturally GF foods.
Do not be put off travelling abroad due to being gluten free (coeliac)
