HOW much would you think a single red pepper costs in Munich or Berlin?
Bizarre as it may sound, this question was relevant to myself and the other shopper standing in a Bandon supermarket glaring at the loose red peppers on display in the box.
“You’re kidding me,” I said.
I withdrew my hand from the red pepper box.
The other shopper did likewise.
We stared at each other, gobsmacked
“They’re charging nearly 90c for a single red pepper,” she said disbelievingly.
“That is just taking things too far,” I snarled.
I’ve really had it.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “People are saying on Facebook that the shops are just putting up prices without saying anything.
“You go in one week and things cost this much and you go back the next week and they’re dearer.”
Were we imagining things, we asked each other?
Did we not most definitely recall a time when loose red peppers were, eh, 49c each?
We definitely did.
Were we losing it?
We didn’t think so.
“If you get the bag with the two red peppers and the green one in between, it works out a bit cheaper,” the other woman said.
As we each took a bag with one green and two red peppers in it, I told her how I had recently discovered that a box of ibuprofen cost five times as much in Cork as it did in Edinburgh (my column last week).
We sighed.
But again, this whole red pepper thing. It’s depressing.
This wasn’t one of your smug, bespoke, top-tier expensive grocery chains, if there is such a thing in Cork.
This was Aldi, the popular low-cost German grocery chain which proudly bills itself as a no-frills shop, with virtually all house-brand products offered at very low prices “thanks to exclusive deals with suppliers, many of which are big-name producers”.
I remember the first time I shopped in one of the - at the time - new German grocery chains. This was many years ago.
I came out with my eyes popping, pushing a teetering trolley of groceries for which I’d paid less than two-thirds what I’d have paid in one of the well-known Irish supermarkets, naming no names.
And that was that.
I never went back.
I stayed with Aldi and Lidl.
A loyal customer I was, of the Germans.
But now?
What the hell’s going on?
A red pepper for a euro does not, to my mind, meet the Aldi criteria for “everyday low prices”.
Were they charging their customers back in Munich nearly a euro for a red pepper, I asked argumentatively.
Or was it just about gouging the Irish again?
The other shopper sighed. “People are saying on Facebook that Aldi’s prices are going up,” she said glumly.
“They definitely are,” another shopper butted in crisply.
Do these grocery chains think women are too stupid to notice, we wondered.
Do they really think that we don’t notice that the claim about everyday low prices is starting to ring a bit hollow, at least in relation to, for example, loose red peppers?
It annoyed me.
I mentioned the matter of rising prices to the girl at the check-out.
Oh, she said, dismissively, every supermarket was getting more expensive.
I know that, I told her, but did she know that Aldi was now charging 89c for a loose red pepper?
That’s nearly a euro, I added unnecessarily.
“A bit saucy,” I said.
The cashier looked surprised.
“Ouch,” she said sympathetically.
Another customer advised: “You’d nearly need to go around all the different supermarket chains every week to keep up with what they’re doing.”
“Prices are sliding up all the time.”
Maybe we’re too busy to keep a running tally, but then when we suddenly notice something and look around, we start wondering what else we’ve missed, and we get annoyed.
I’m wondering now what else I’ve missed, and I’m annoyed.
I’m very annoyed with Aldi.
Aren’t they making enough goddamn profit out of the Irish as it is?
And another thing.
The apparent good news: We’re all going to be saving money and having litter-free hedgerows and roads as a result of this new system for returning plastic water bottles and cans.
So if you buy a can of Coke or a pack of water or a pack of beer with this new Re-Turn logo on them, they can be returned for money.
The new bottle banks have only just come into operation, and we’re assured that while it means the drinks will inevitably increase in price - aha - we’ll be able to get our money back at almost every supermarket and large convenience store in the country, because most of them will have Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) installed. So, it should all work out.
Yeah, I thought coldly, work out for who exactly?
On the upside, getting your money back from an RVM should be a no-brainer as long as your containers are empty, undamaged, and have the barcode clearly visible. You get a voucher which you can redeem at the check-out.
There will be a rise in the price of these bottles of minerals and water, reasonably enough, I suppose, given that you’re supposed to be able to claim it all back.
Currently, the plan is that, for example, a four-pack of 330ml cans of Coke, which retailed for €4.90, will now rise to €5.50.
The customer won’t lose out, the argument goes, because you’ll be getting your money back when you return your bottles to the new plastic bottle bank.
But why is it that I have this insistent feeling in my gut that the prices will slowly, slowly and ever so gently and gradually glide over the levy increase required to fund these new recycling banks?
Or is that just me being silly, suspicious, pursed-mouthed, nay-saying, paranoid old me?
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