Monday 12 January 2015

... cheaper than water

Ah, I fondly remember the good old days of last year, with shock horror headlines like this...

Channel 4 Dispatches find supermarkets selling beer cheaper than water

Today they were clobbering us with this...

Milk cheaper than water: supermarket price war drives down price of a pint


Supermarket price wars have pushed the price of four-pinter milk below that of some bottled waters...

When bought in a four-pint bottle, the price per litre of milk has dipped to 43p, compared to 44p for bottled still water.


If you do the numbers, the pump price (excluding tax) of a litre of petrol is considerably lower, at 32p per litre.

... which all reminds me of the 1985 film Water, the key scene is when Michael Caine has to explain to the disappointed islanders that they can actually sell 'table water' for a far higher price than they could sell the crude oil they were hoping to find.

What goes around comes around, eh?

5 comments:

James Higham said...

A similar to argument to that in Quantum of Solace in Bolivia.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, I've not seen QoS but having read the plot on imdb and Wiki, I don't think it is the same.

IN QoS, the baddie is 'stealing' a country's water supply to obtain a monopoly. I don't think it compares the relative open-market prices of water and other stuff.

So in that respect, QoS is more like Superman: The Movie, it's about land grabs and monopolies.

DBC Reed said...

Don't try to understand the Gods of the Markets just make sacrifices to propitiate them .(Preferably get the serfs to make the sacrifices, ideally of their children's lives: we are too busy organising sacrifices and need our mansions in the centre of events.)
Reject and abominate the false prophets of the Old Testament respected by Judaism, Christianity and Islam: they would tell you that man has dominion over the Earth and that all its forces can be controlled.
But we know market forces must be obeyed for they will wreak famine and destruction if denied.They will wreak famine and destruction anyway : market forces work in mysterious ways their wonders to perform.

Tim Almond said...

You can find bottled water ranging from 9p/litre to £1.35/litre.

It's like someone talking about the price of jewellery and comparing something from Argos with something from Cartier.

And milk farmers have been complaining for decades. Kinda boring when you keep hearing how hard up they are. Quit if it's so terrible.

Bayard said...

"When bought in a four-pint bottle, the price per litre of milk has dipped to 43p, compared to 44p for bottled still water."

Two points:
I can buy bottled water for £0.125/litre, and it's fizzy.
Milk does not have VAT on it, while water does, so, excluding VAT, that's 37p/litre for the water.

Reminds me of the old Citroen 2CV ad: "Faster than a Porsche*"

*A 2CV cruising at its top speed of 65mph can easily pass a Porsche doing 55mph.