Asda is apparently touting a Christmas dinner that works out at just £1.83/hd. When are going to consumers start asking how on earth can it be done for that kind of money - because let's face it - it can't, can it?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2748008/183-Christmas-lunch-in-supermarkets.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News

The luxury lunch has turkey, spuds, carrots, gravy, cranberry sauce and stuffing, followed by a Christmas pudding and six mince pies

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2748008/183-Christmas-lunch-in-supermarkets.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News#ixzz0Y4BbfqSY

Luxury. 

In English....  use of and indulgence in  choice or costly things 

In latin ....      vicious indulgence.

In French .... abundance, sumptious enjoyment

In ASDA....   £1.83p 

 I have been rearing 2 turkeys, just to say that I can eat a truly home grown Christmas dinner this year! I couldn't keep just one, so the other will go in the freezer for Easter.

They have eaten 2 x 25kg bags of grower/fattener pellets, which already makes them worth £8 each. Add to that my time feeding, penning up & letting out each day over the 12 weeks I have had them - roughly 18 hours in total so add another £108.

So just the turkey alone should cost £60 at least for the energy invested in rearing it. I don't know how much meat is in each meal, but i'm guessing not alot! 

so who is subsidising this? oh yes its the turkey farmer, the spud grower etc.

there wont be much xmas cheer for any of the suppliers.

"wooh is me" if the spud farmer and the turkey farmer can't make a profit then they should go and do something else that does pay simple econonics.

work for ASDA maybe.

lazy

13 million people in the UK according to someones statistics live below the 'poverty' line and can not afford healthy food. What they do spend their money on is also probably making them ill.

Sometimes if the price on the product is low the real cost of the product is too high

Nothing new.

John Ruskin died 1900.

It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all.

When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.

mr lazy farmer, if all the people you describe followed you advice, there would be no spuds or turkeys next year.

the problem that farmers have is that the spud and turkey sheds have already been built and need to be paid for. you cant just walk away , unless you are already bankrupt. 

word is that half the spud growers round here wont be growing next yr.

still pure economics then less supply the price will rise or somebody will do it cheaper.farmers seem to take pleasure in doing a job then moaning that either their not paid enough or nobody wants whaty they have produced

sorry but fed up with the victim mentality some in our industry have get on and learn and improve or get out just don't moan about markets they are our has always been and always will be supermarket ombusman? don't make me laugh

lazy

mr lazy farmer, your sentences dont make sense, have you been drinking?

sadly this is no laughing matter. there is no "market" any more, only a monopoly of 4 big buyers, who dont keep their word on anything.

In america they have anti trust laws which prevent anything being sold as a loss leader, ie below the cost of production. its high time we folowed suit, but the yanks are light years ahead of us in fair business practise.

Half the uk bankers would be locked up if they were in the USA.

Don't be so sure of that glasshouse.  I see things as just the opposite of what you stated, I feel you Brits are light years ahead of us in fair business practices, I guess the grass truly is greener on the other side of the fence.

have to apologise glass house i made the mistake of posting it before reading it! and i couldn't get the edited post onto the board so i gave up!

  basically i was llamenting the amount of moaning and defeatest talk that agriculture UK does.We have a wonderful climate for food production in the uk good soils  good markets good infrastructure and yet we complain. we do that very well!  complaining achieves nothing banging on about an ombusman waste of time. We are incredabily lucky to be masters of our own destiny lets act like it!   

lazy 

if there was an ombudsman, we would  not need to complain.

the only farmer in britain who is master of his own destiny is the one who owns his farm outright, with no payments on machinery and no operating overdraft.

he can decide,;will i grow or wont i. the rest of us are stuck on the treadmill. or i prefer the image of pushing sh** uphill.

some years you get near the top, like back in 07, if you sold spot.

since then i have slipped all the way back to the bottom, thanks to two bad summers/autumn, and record fert/deisel prices.and record duty on it.

not to mention wheat at 1979 prices, when £60 was a tractor drivers wage

crazysheep:

 I have been rearing 2 turkeys, just to say that I can eat a truly home grown Christmas dinner this year!

Get some apple into them. (chop up very very fine to start them off) Also as much 'green' stuff as you can. That will slow them down a bit and add mightily to their flavour.