TWANG! Do you hear that, Starbucks?
TWANG! You too, M&S.
Twang! Twang! Twang! Cadbury’s, Costa, Pret.
If that sounds like knickers twisting in the wind, you’d be right. “Price elasticity of demand” is the term economists use to describe the way consumers like you and I respond to the rising cost of our favourite foods. And frankly, with the arrival of the £5 cup of coffee at Starbucks coming in the wake of the £6 Marks & Sparks egg sarnie, all give has gone here at Woods Towers. My elastic has well and truly snapped – and I have a suspicion I’m far from alone.
For households like mine, the era of ambient snacking is over. There’s no more stretch in our purse strings and no bounce-back in our budgets for wraps so expensive they may as well be made of silk, and shrink-flationed treats like brownies at £3.50 a bite.
Thai ground chicken with crispy kale and sherry vinaigrette on Japanese shokupan bread? Uh…how much? The fact I have gluten intolerance and can’t eat most sandwiches only adds to my sense of pique at having to bankroll them for my brood. Take a family of four to a high street food outlet and you’ll be lucky to emerge with change from £50.
I’ve got a weekly shop to get; I can do without a cost-of-sandwich crisis. As far as I’m concerned, RIP the luxury lunch when I can easily rustle up a passable sarnie and flapjack combo – fresh and additive-free to boot – for a fraction of the price. An entire flask of coffee? I’m on it. Our drinking water (unlike our swimming water) is of an outstanding quality, so fill that plastic bottle from a tap or go without.
The challenge now is to hammer that message home to my in-house Generation Avocado. One of the peculiarities of today’s youth is that they are perfectly happy to buy second-hand clothes, pre-loved trainers and scold people like me about ruining the planet.
But they feel indignantly short-changed when anyone suggests they curtail their pomegranate seed habit or swap their pricey rocket salad for a Liz Truss lettuce. Add a drizzle of balsamic – suddenly it’s delicious and highly palatable. If only the malign forces of the Deep State had known. Oh well.
When I was growing up, buying pre-packed sandwiches wasn’t an option; it was a case of making lunch or forsaking lunch. I recall many a Seventies day out sustained by a Granny Smith and a pack of Rainbow Drops – stale Rice Krispies with a multicoloured sugar coating, kids.
And (dare I say it aloud), we were a heck of a lot slimmer. Occasional hunger pangs were the norm; nobody lionised lunch apart from the French and they sat down and had entire menus dedicated to salads. They still do. But who has the time?
At the risk of sounding like a gastronomic philistine, sometimes I believe it’s fine for food to be fuel. What’s so wrong with a homemade cheese sandwich or a few bits and pieces in a plastic tub? Cue outrage. At least from those who don’t pay the bills.
The Working From Home brigade have discovered self-catering (if not actual WFH) makes sense but refuseniks remain.
Our student offspring see daily trips to Pret as an inalienable human right. Our teenagers have no idea how to cut a slice of bread properly. And our tweens regard mango and passion fruit smoothies as a non-negotiable food group. Why? Because mugs like me have been paying for it.
Actually that’s not quite true. I blame their father. Daddy has always been the Flash Harry who says things like, “Yes, you can have the truffle focaccia – knock yourself out”. But even he has begun to baulk at the prospect of forking out for two slices of bread with a limp filling.
In the second half of last year, Thermos sales soared by 187 per cent in the UK. I bought one myself. As the weather improves and we’re out and about en famille, I’m minded to bring mine into full service and invest in some upmarket-looking reusable sandwich bags to lessen the stigma of my homemade lunches.
Every meal begins with the eyes. Even I can recognise that pulling out a plastic freezer bag containing sweaty tuna mayo on sourdough doesn’t gladden the heart when compared to the carefully curated displays in a chiller cabinet.
So it’s down to me (as per) to up the creativity if I want to lower the cost. In fact, it would be intriguing to keep a tab on the amount I spend on carefully selected ingredients (OK, pimped-up leftovers) versus the convenience of grabbing something – very often anything – en route.
A culinary challenge then; to come up with freshly cut (price) artisan sandwiches, sprinkled with pomegranate and made with… a bit more love than in a factory. I can already feel my elasticity returning…
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