Britons are switching from buying fresh food to cheaper frozen goods as the cost of living bites into budgets, the boss of Tesco said recently, adding that people are also using barcode scanners more while shopping to avoid being “embarrassed” at the tills.
Ken Murphy, chief executive of the UK’s largest supermarket, told BBC that some shoppers were also swapping pricier red meat for cheaper white protein to save money.
Shoppers were “managing their budgets much more tightly” and had changed their behaviour by “trading down” to cheaper food and own brand products, Murphy said.
Other examples he said included seeking out cheaper frozen meat and vegetables instead of fresh produce, batch cooking meals and cutting back on eating out.
The Tesco boss said the hand-held barcode scanners allowed people to “keep to a specific budget” by being able to keep an eye on the running total, instead of being “worried about being embarrassed at the till” if it turned out they could not afford their shopping or were over budget.
Tesco has reportedly sold double the number of frozen turkeys this year compared to the amount in 2019, due to shoppers cutting back. There has also been a huge spike in luxury frozen desserts, and searches for frozen food in general on Tesco’s website are up 40 per cent from last year.
Murphy said that the UK was living in “times of turbulence and times of change” and people were worried about the “affordability of life today”.
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