Episode 10 Rip Off Britain

There's a lot we don't know about the food on our plate,

and the shops and the labels don't always tell you the whole story.

Sometimes when you have these offers on in the supermarket, you think

you're getting a good deal, but if you're actually throwing it away,

it's not a good deal.

Whether you're staying in or going out,

you've told us you can feel ripped off by the promises made for what

you eat and what you pay for it.

What really winds me up I suppose is the price of so-called healthy food

and compared with the unhealthy stuff.

The unhealthy stuff seems to be so much cheaper.

From claims that don't stack up to the secrets behind the packaging,

we'll uncover the truth about Britain's food so you can be sure

you're getting what you expect at the right price.

Your food, your money.

This is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello and welcome to Rip-Off Britain, where today,

we're going to be unpicking some of the key factors

that influence which foods end up on our

plates, whether that's to do with its price,

its availability or even the latest trends because, you know,

some foods do go in and out of fashion, just like anything else.

Well, one story that brought into very sharp focus a combination of

several of those factors was the sudden shortage of fresh veg that

affected all of us, if you remember, at the start of 2017.

Now, you may recall that some prices rocketed and some supermarkets even

rationed how much broccoli you could buy.

We'll be exploring the wider implications of that

and as we'll see,

while some foods have become such staples that we expect to be able

to get hold of them all the year round,

there are others that have gone out of fashion, so much so,

that they're in danger of becoming extinct.

So, let's find out if your favourite is on that danger list.

Coming up, why a perfect storm of bad weather on the continent led to

soaring prices for our veg.

How can we stop the same thing happening again?

A box of courgettes that would be somewhere within the region

-of £5 to £7 went up to £24.

-What?!

And we enter the world of the silver screen to catch up with what

cinemas now charge for those must-have snacks,

and it seems that the prices at some of the multiplexes are leaving

you very perplexed indeed.

When I go to the cinema, the price of the food is almost the same

as the ticket price and I was really shocked by the price of it.

I think it was £8 for the nachos.

I guess we've all become so very used to being able to get hold of

whatever fresh produce we want at any time of the year

that it all came as a bit of a shock in early 2017

to find that we were suddenly hit by a vegetable shortage,

which led to empty supermarket shelves,

rocketing prices and even some stores limiting what you could buy.

With several of our shopping basket staples affected,

it really did bring home to us what a very finely balanced business the

whole supply of foods can be,

especially when we've come to take them for granted.

So, with the immediate crisis now over,

I've been looking into what lessons this might have for the future and

whether or not there really is anything we can do

to avoid something similar ever happening again.

Hi, Sid.

Chris.

Have you got anything else to offer in peppers other than that little

bit of red there?

It's 4:30am and while most of us will still be asleep at

that hour, Mike Noone is already up and at 'em in this fruit and veg

market in Greater Manchester.

Yeah.

I tell you what,

-Five red.

-Five red.

And two or three yellow, please.

He's at the helm of a fruit and veg supply business that's just one cog in

the huge machine that brings a wealth of products to our tables.

It's a nice variety this, Osprey. I quite like them.

It's places like this across the UK that determine the price

we end up paying for our produce when we go to the shops and the key

factor is how much buyers like Mike have to pay for it first.

Right, OK. Well, book us these then, Andy, please.

If he has to pay more, then so will whoever is buying from him.

And while that seems like simple economics,

for a food retailer to be competitive, its prices must remain low,

and that's a huge challenge,

especially when dealing with fresh products exposed to the elements.

We decide how to buy generally based on the volume of product that's in the market.

That will decide how much the price is.

So it's down to the relationships that we've got with the traders here to negotiate a price.

Anything in red pepper, please?

If it's expensive, we might only buy ten, just to have them in the shelf.

If it's cheap, if it's abundant, we might buy 100.

It all depends on how much it is and that's the negotiation.

That's the whole point of coming to market.

Now, Mike supplies chefs and restaurants who are generally able to be

flexible with their menus if there are sudden changes to what produce is available,

but that's not so easy for supermarkets, with modern consumers

wanting consistency in what we buy and what we pay for it.

Every day our supermarket shelves are stacked full of fresh fruit and vegetables,

quite a few of them having come from other parts of the world.

You know, long gone are the days when we could only buy seasonal fruit and veg.

These days, we can buy our favourite fruits,

our favourite vegetables whenever we want,

and that would go a long way to explaining why in 2015, for instance,

the imports of fresh produce into the UK hit six million tonnes.

With customers demanding a year-round supply of the fruits we enjoy,

the pressure is on to keep prices low, and to accommodate both those factors

there are times of the year when the amount that we import goes right up.

We rely massively on imported produce,

certainly through the winter months.

If we didn't have imports from Spain and Europe and Thailand and Asia and

all around the world,

we'd be eating cabbage and carrots and leeks throughout the winter months,

much like your grandparents did.

But now we've got much more exotic tastes,

so it comes from all over the world.

Of course, it changes and the seasons change.

In the summer months, we buy our cos lettuce from a farm that's 15 miles away.

Takes all the transport costs out of it,

but if you want cos lettuce in the winter months,

it has to come from Spain.

Why that country? Well, obviously it's got a warmer climate,

which means that it's got a much longer growing season than we have.

But that explains why in the winter 80% of the vegetables you buy are

going to have come from Spain.

But, you know, we should never take that for granted, because every now and again

we get a sharp reminder that, as any good gardener will tell you,

it only takes a tiny glitch in the weather to ensure that growing produce

of any kind is going to become a very precarious business indeed.

Which is exactly what happened in January 2017 when freak weather in Spain

caused a momentous storm in the supply chain.

The south-east of the country was hit by record levels of rain and even some snow.

Murcia, an area that supplies by far the bulk of our fresh produce during

the winter months, had 70% of its growing fields wiped out,

with crops of courgettes,

spinach and iceberg lettuce amongst the hardest hit.

Other parts of southern Europe were also affected,

creating major shortages right across the continent.

And while all that happened thousands of miles away,

the effects were soon being felt much closer to home.

Any veg that did make it to the UK was in such short supply that it ran

out very quickly, leading to empty shelves in our supermarkets.

And back in Manchester,

businesses like Noone and Sons were badly affected too.

In all the 40 years that I've been coming to market,

this is without doubt the worst six or eight weeks that we've ever had.

The weather has decimated the products coming out of Spain

and caused massive shortages.

Maggie is Mike's wife and is in charge of marketing at the company.

She says the produce that did get through

came at a massively inflated cost.

What did that do to the price of what you were buying?

Well, it sent the price absolutely through the roof.

I mean, the guys, the buyers that we have and my husband said that they'd

never seen anything like it in the last 40 years.

So, to give you an example,

a box of courgettes that normally to us would be somewhere within the

-region of £5 to £7 went up to £24...

-What?!

..in a matter of days.

-That's huge!

-Yeah, so it just didn't gradually increase,

it just went right up to £24, simply because they weren't available.

They couldn't get hold of them,

but the demand in this day and age never goes down.

So, it was just supply and demand.

If it's not there, the price goes up simply because it's so scarce.

But one interesting aspect of all of this was the way the supermarkets

reacted, with some imposing limits on the amount of veg that shoppers could buy.

Britain's vegetable shortage is continuing, with some supermarkets

rationing the sale of produce.

Well, Tesco and Morrisons are both limiting customers to three iceberg

lettuces and Morrisons are reported to be preventing shoppers from

buying more than three heads of broccoli.

Morrisons has told us that it did that to stop businesses bulk buying the produce,

leaving less for families.

But with salads in short supply,

some wholesalers and retailers took the costly decision to import it from the US.

So, why do you think if there was product around,

even though it was going to be a bit more expensive,

why do you think so many supermarkets just left their shelves empty?

Partly because they couldn't get it.

So, what the supermarkets will do is contract a price.

So, for a season, you know,

they will be contracting two seasons ahead now for this time next year or

whatever and they definitely hold the suppliers to a price.

So, if the suppliers are going to sell it to anybody,

it wouldn't be the supermarket, because they can get a premium price for it elsewhere.

So, at the height of the shortage,

eating our greens fast became an expensive habit.

At one London market, the cost of broccoli shot up by 400%

from £1 per kilogram to £5 per kilogram.

But now the dust has settled,

we wanted to find out if shoppers would still be prepared to pay some of

the top prices that at the time we were asked to pay for certain veg.

So, that's £1.70 for a lettuce,

£1.90 for just one courgette and three quid for a bag of spinach.

I wouldn't pay £1.90 for that, no.

I'd pay £1.90 for a pack of these, but not, not,

not just £1.90 for this by itself.

If this spinach was going for £3 a bag...

..I think I'd just probably choose another vegetable and just leave the spinach.

There's no way I'd pay £1.70.

No, oh, no.

I would never pay that.

The most I would pay for this is 90p.

So, judging by the shoppers we spoke to, it seems there is a limit on what

we're prepared to pay for our veg.

But the effects of all of this could still have an impact on our pockets

for some time, because while Spanish crops are now recovering and supplies

of lettuce, tomato and courgettes have returned to their usual levels,

it's expected that over the next few months we'll have to fork out 20%

more for that kitchen cupboard staple olive oil,

due to the combination of a poor olive harvest and weak pound.

And the veg shortage is reckoned to have cost shops

around £8 million in lost sales in just one month.

There is, of course, a way we could avoid what happens in fields so far

from our shores affecting what we eat, and that's to become completely self-sufficient.

But food historian Sam Bilton says the last time we came

anywhere near that was a century ago in World War I.

By 1917, something like one in four of our merchant ships were being

destroyed by the German Navy.

So, something like nine million acres of land was turned into arable

land to grow crops like potato and wheat,

which was the biggest harvest we'd ever seen in this country at that point.

In terms of self-sufficiency for the future, it seems unlikely.

I would imagine that the arable land

that was available during the First World War is now no longer available

for that purpose.

It's unlikely we would get to a point where we are growing

enough wheat and potatoes to feed this country.

But if that sounds like we're destined to remain reliant

on importing our winter fruit and veg,

there are suppliers closer to home determined to find a solution to that,

and thanks to new innovations in farming,

some UK farmers are starting to find ways of producing affordable British

produce all the year round.

In the UK, we import 80% of our tomatoes,

a figure which rises even higher in the winter months.

But Rick Holt's company in the Vale of Evesham, Worcestershire,

which has been producing British tomatoes for over three decades,

now does it in winter too,

by using technology that combats the cold and lack of sunshine during the winter months.

Well, to grow tomatoes in the winter you have to supply light, because in

January and February,

there's nothing like enough light from outside.

To begin with people used sodium lamps,

which are like streetlights and we've got those in the roof,

but in recent years they found that LEDs are better because they're more

efficient and they're just giving the colours that the plants want.

Rick's hi-tech greenhouses cover 22 acres.

That's the equivalent of over ten football pitches.

It supplies tomatoes to several of the big stores.

We've been growing under lights for about three years.

We've put them in to see how it went and it seems to be going quite well.

It means that we can grow for 12 months of the year,

which from our point of view is a good thing, supplying to supermarkets.

But although he produces over 15 tonnes of tomatoes every week,

that is still only 0.1% of the 500,000 tonnes that we consume every year,

and all of those lights do have a cost.

The problem is they can in some cases grow it much cheaper abroad,

which means that they can supply into this country cheaper,

which makes it difficult for our growers to make a profit.

So, we are up against imports and the prices that they come in.

So, unless we're prepared to pay a bit more for home-grown veg or turn back

the clock on our exotic tastes and eat seasonally again,

it seems for now we remain at the mercy of the rain in Spain.

We're so used now to stuff from all over the world coming at any time.

So, we get strawberries in the winter,

we get all this lovely fruit and veg,

regardless of what used to be a kind of a seasonal rotation.

-Do you think we've been a bit spoiled by expecting that?

-I do, yeah.

I absolutely do and I think the general public,

people on the street,

because they see it all the time in the supermarkets, never question,

never even question where it comes from.

So, although this has been a total disaster, you know,

we're really pleased that it's let people have a window

into what exactly goes on with growing things.

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain...

From food trends to marketing hype and pricing.

We take a closer look at why some of our much loved everyday foods

like marmalades are actually in decline and we ask - can anything be

done to save them from extinction?

It doesn't surprise me that young people don't like it.

There's so much you can do with it and I think that's kind of been

forgotten and we need to bring it back in a way.

Now, here's a familiar scenario of family life.

You've planned a night out at the cinema for the whole family.

The tickets are booked and you're already reeling at the fact

that you've had to shell out up to £50

for less than two hours of fun,

but the financial pain doesn't end there.

Once you arrive at the cinema,

everyone makes a beeline for the drinks and snacks and bang goes even more of your money.

Easily up to £30 if everyone fancies popcorn and a drink.

Well, we tend to grit our teeth and chalk it all up as part of the whole

cinema experience, don't we?

But we've heard that plenty of you think it's time that the big chains

took another long look at their prices.

Ever since food vendors were introduced to movie theatres back in the 1930s,

snacks have been as synonymous with the cinema as Fred was with Ginger,

and for many of us a trip to the pictures is only complete

once we're fully armed with our favourite munchies.

When I go to the cinema I've got to have popcorn, Coke, crisps.

-An 'ot dog.

-An 'ot dog, yeah.

I have a pick'n'mix, I think most people do,

or an ice cream and a Coca-Cola.

But while those treats and nibbles may be part of the big-screen

experience, too often they can come at a blockbusting price.

The price of food in cinemas

is quite expensive.

Every year or so I've noticed it goes up 50p, £1.

Since I was a kid, it's gotten a lot more expensive.

Now, we regularly hear from people objecting to the cost of cinema snacks,

and while, of course, no one's forcing you to buy them from the cinema itself,

it's clear that if that's what you choose to do,

some of the prices charged have become particularly hard to swallow.

One recent social media post went viral and got over 13,000 likes,

when a frustrated customer expressed his dismay at how much his trip to

the cinema ended up costing,

with particular irritation reserved for this rather uninspiring tray of nachos.

Someone else who's cheesed off with the cost is Teri Peters from Bedford.

She wrote to us saying her visits to the cinema have become less and less

frequent due to rising prices, so, reluctantly,

she and her friend June now do most of their movie watching in their own homes.

When I go to the cinema,

the price of the food is almost the same as the ticket price.

I took my granddaughter to the cinema, and I had a ticket, she had a ticket.

She had some nachos and I had that and we had a Coke and

it came out at about £30.

I think it was £8 for the nachos, a little tray,

and I was really shocked by the price of it.

And June says the last time she treated her three grandchildren,

things got particularly pricey.

I bought a bag of pick'n'mix.

When they weighed the sweets, it was £12,

and I couldn't say to them "Put them back, cos I'm not paying that,"

so I bought them,

but it was...far more expensive than

buying it in a supermarket.

That was the first thing that shocked me, but it got worse.

My oldest grandson wanted a hot dog and a drink,

and it was £7.50.

For many, it's popcorn that's the cinema essential,

so it's perhaps no wonder that a 2014 survey found that was the item

British moviegoers considered to be the absolute worst value for money.

To see if that's backed up by the facts,

we wanted to find out exactly how much those puffed kernels typically cost.

But getting the country's best-known cinema chains,

Vue, Odeon and Cineworld,

to part with any information about their product prices wasn't an easy task.

When we contacted them directly,

they wouldn't tell us how much they charge,

but, undeterred, we visited cinemas right across the UK to gather our own intel,

and we soon found some rather striking regional variations in what

you'd pay for a large popcorn.

The most expensive we found, perhaps unsurprisingly, was in London,

where we'd have paid a whopping £6.30 at a branch of Vue,

and across the country, once we averaged out the prices,

it was Vue that came out the most expensive,

with a large popcorn typically setting you back £5.54.

It was Cineworld that came out the cheapest,

with an average price of £5.12,

and as its large bag was also bigger than its rivals' offerings,

pound for pound, Cineworld definitely came out

best value for money.

Or perhaps that should be "least worst" value for money,

because at any of these cinemas,

what you're getting is still significantly more expensive than you'd pay

for popcorn in a store.

Well, I've just been to the local supermarket and bought these.

They cost £1 each, but if I was to do...

..this and...

..this...

..I could charge you £5.

That's a mark-up of 150%.

Mmm, tastes expensive!

We also took a look at what the big chains charge for their nachos and

they were an even worse deal.

The average price we found across the country for this savoury snack,

including dip and toppings, was £5.58.

But a bag of straight nachos from your local supermarket could set you

back as little as 46p.

So, even once you've taken into account the cost of the cheese

and the extras and warming everything up,

the cinemas are likely to be walking away with a pretty profit.

And while, of course, they're in the business of making money,

and most of us would expect to pay more at the cinema than we would at the supermarket,

how much more is it justifiable for them to charge?

We asked some shoppers in Gloucester what they thought would be a

reasonable price for these two snacks.

What would you think it's fair to pay for something like these two?

About £3 for that.

-And what about...?

-I guess cos it comes with dips,

probably about four or five for nachos.

£3 for that.

-And what about that?

-Well, that's not a lot...

£2.50.

A couple of pounds each, I suppose.

-A couple of pounds each?

-That's what I would pay, yeah.

Would it surprise you to know that actually what you'd pay would be

£5.20 and £5.50?

£5.50 for that?

Yeah, what you think of that?

That's too much. Way too much.

I mean, that won't last you the whole movie.

It's a lot of money, definitely.

I think that's why don't always have it every time I go,

cos it's a bit overpriced.

And it's not just consumers wondering if the big chains might be pushing

their prices to the limit.

Film critic James Luxford knows the industry inside out,

so he knows how the cinemas will justify their food and drink prices.

The reason cinemas charge so much for food and drink is often because they

have similar overheads to, say, a restaurant or a bar,

but also the price you pay at the box office for your cinema ticket

is not all going to the cinema.

Often 50% will go to the film studio, the people making the film,

and 50% to the cinema, with the bigger movies,

the big summer blockbusters that everyone wants to see,

sometimes the cinema will get 25%, sometimes even less.

So, they have to make their profit from another means.

It's not very good for the consumer, but there is a reason for it.

But with chains such as Cineworld recording pre-tax profits of almost

£100 million,

James can see why many find those huge margins hard to stomach.

I don't think it's fair at all.

It's a bit of a vicious circle,

in terms of, the cinema needs to make money and we all want the cinema

experience to remain as it is,

but it does seem that cinemagoers are being squeezed

from the moment they walk in through the door to the moment

the credits start rolling.

And there are even cinema insiders who'd agree with that.

People like Mark Roberts, former manager at Premiere Cinema,

an independent picture house in Romford.

Like the big chains, the cinema relies heavily on revenue from the kiosk,

but they don't like to push the prices too high.

Instead, they offer smaller portions at lower prices than the multiplexes

so their customers won't end up spending too much and they can still make a profit.

I think there's a certain degree of what's actually acceptable to charge your customers.

The prices that we charge here,

I think they're fair for us and I think it's enough profit that we can

cope and we can survive.

Maybe with the larger chains,

I think it comes down to a certain amount of greed.

Once customers are actually in the cinema it's almost like a captive audience,

especially if you've got screaming children asking for popcorn, asking for drinks,

and their parents will have to pay it because that's all that's on offer.

Well, when we contacted Vue,

Cineworld and Odeon to ask about their food and drink pricing,

they all chose not to comment.

But the UK Cinema Association, which represents the industry,

told us that just like other leisure facilities,

such as theatres and football grounds,

the prices at cinemas reflect a number of different factors and costs,

and are openly advertised,

with customers free to choose whether or not they buy.

The Association also pointed out that most cinemas offer value discounts

on combo deals, which sometimes include the cost of the cinema ticket too.

So, the headline price of a drink or snack is often not the one paid by most customers.

Well, sad to say, the rising cost of a trip to the cinema shows no sign

of slowing down, but we've got some good tips for you

that might help you save a few pennies

next time you go to the movies.

First, do check for those combo deals that the industry body recommends,

so if you're buying more than one thing,

you might be able to save at least a few pennies.

And another option, of course, is to take in your own snacks, which Vue,

Odeon and Cineworld are happy for you to do,

providing the food's not hot and the drink isn't alcoholic.

In fact, the same goes for seven out of the top ten chains.

Only Everyman, Curzon and Merlin

won't allow food brought in from outside the cinema.

For Teri, though, buying snacks at the cinema used to be part of the fun,

so unless the prices come down,

the local multiplex isn't a place she's likely to be visiting any time soon.

If the snacks were less, I think more people would go to the cinema,

because you're talking doubling up the price.

And, um...

For people on low incomes, on pensions, it's a lot of money.

Up next, three foods with one thing in common - Ulster corned beef,

Jersey black butter and Bath chaps.

Now, it might sound like I've been reading the menu from some smart new

restaurant, but in fact I've been reading up on foods that used to be

commonplace around the UK.

Like anything else, of course,

foods go in and out of fashion and while there are some that remain

consistently well loved,

over the years, others have gone through waves of popularity.

So, we wanted to tap into what makes certain foods stay one step ahead of

the competition, and look into why other long-established favourites

could well be heading for extinction.

It's the annual Marmalade Festival in Penrith in Cumbria.

Artisan marmalade makers are here to show off their creations,

and the rest of us are welcome to join in everything from Marmalade

Question Time, to marmalade cookery classes and, best of all,

a marmalade tasting competition.

It's a celebration of the age-old orange spread,

organised by Jane Hasell-McCosh.

My awards and festival started 12 years ago now,

with 60 pots from friends and neighbours,

and I somehow managed to persuade them to put them in for a competition.

But it's grown from strength to strength.

Each year we think, "Well, perhaps if it's not going to be so good, we'll give up."

But each year, even more pots come in.

Judging the competition are marmalade supremos Eileen and Doreen.

They know exactly what they think makes the perfect pot.

The perfect marmalade needs to be beautifully clear, well-cooked peel,

-which is quite a fault that most of them have.

-Yes.

And the consistency, it has to be nice jelly-like consistency,

rather than syrupy.

It makes an awful difference.

Fellow marmalade enthusiast Rose simply can't get enough of it.

I think marmalade's one of the best things ever,

I was brought up with it and I love it on toast,

but I think it's also very versatile, there's so much you can do with it,

and I think that's kind of been forgotten, and we need to bring it back, in a way.

From the crowds here today,

you'd never know that in actual fact despite being a breakfast favourite

for hundreds of years,

marmalade sales have declined in recent years by 4.7%,

and there doesn't seem to be a new generation of fans waiting in the wings.

Just 10% of marmalade is sold to households with children.

It doesn't surprise me that young people don't like it,

but I think there's a lot we can do to make sure that they realise that

it's very versatile and there's actually so much you can do,

whether it's cooking with it or you could put it in a cocktail,

it doesn't just have to be on your toast.

But marmalade isn't the only food

once considered a staple of the British diet

to have taken a nosedive in sales.

Our food-buying habits are constantly changing,

so also now also going out of fashion is white bread.

Since 1974, its sales have fallen by 75%,

and traditional tea and tinned foods are also reportedly in decline.

Adam Leyland from the trade magazine The Grocer has a few clues

as to what impacts food trends.

So, here we have the tin.

This is a technology that's been around for 200 years.

It's a technology that is old-fashioned,

and new technologies have replaced it.

Most particularly, we like our food fresh and chilled,

and over the last 40 years,

an incredible chilled supply chain has been

developed that means we can now have our food fresh.

If supermarkets' ability to sell fresher food plays some part

in changing what we eat, another factor some would say

is our more sophisticated tastes.

So, if you take wrapped bread, that technology's been around for 90 years,

and at the time it was a miracle,

hence the phrase "the best thing since sliced bread".

But, our tastes are changing, so we want more premium loaves,

we want gluten-free loaves, because there's concern about bloating

associated with bread and we want no carbs at all,

that's another key diet-based trend.

So, as tastes and technologies change,

it's the job of manufacturers and retailers to adapt and evolve their

products to keep us buying,

and one section of the market that's done exactly that is frozen food,

which seems to have gone all upmarket.

In the last year or two,

there's been big investment in selling up the power of frozen.

So, they've said, "Let's get frozen food, but let's make it frozen and really fine quality,"

and in doing so, they've ticked a trend and achieved real uplift in sales,

for the first time in years.

So, reinvention and rebranding is the name of the game in the food

industry, in order to keep old trusty products

from being consigned to the culinary history books.

But when it comes to marmalade,

there's no doubt that many young people would much rather spread other

products such as peanut butter and chocolate spread on their toast

than something that contains fruit.

In fact, while marmalade sales dwindle,

those of chocolate spread Nutella have continued to rise.

It's now the UK's top spread, with sales worth over £50 million.

Now, one person who goes nuts for the stuff is Olympic canoer Rebeka Simon.

I've liked chocolate spread ever since I can remember.

Whenever we went on summer holidays with my grandparents,

I remember that we were always allowed a teaspoon of chocolate spread a day with my brother.

My top three ways would be on a crepe,

but totally filled with chocolate spread.

Another favourite is chocolate spread-filled doughnuts, but again,

like, really full.

But my absolute favourite out of these is eating it with a spoon

out of the jar.

So, why's chocolate hitting the mark over the go-to spread of the past?

I've tried marmalade once, thinking that it was going to be really,

really sweet and then it was a very disappointing first taste.

One big plus for marmalade is the price.

We found an own-brand marmalade for just 40p a pot -

that's four times cheaper than the cheapest chocolate spread.

But, of course, it's been proven that our tastes do change.

A recent survey suggests that nearly three-quarters of us now have a much

bigger range of foods in our diet.

So, as the variety expands,

the harder products have to work to stay on our shopping list.

Some products, of course, go away.

But it's amazing how many have a sticking power,

but as they get less popular,

they're taken less seriously by the supermarkets,

the space they're given declines and it takes a great deal of energy and

money and innovation, frankly, to revive an ailing brand.

So, you think of some of the classics of the last few years -

for example, a rejuvenation of the Smash instant potato.

That's a product that's been in decline for years,

it was considered unhealthy,

but there's potential evidence for it coming back.

So, in an attempt to keep marmalade on-trend,

we're going to do an experiment, and to do it we need someone who really,

really loves the stuff.

Meet 29-year-old Ollie Gregory from London.

The thing I really like about marmalade is that bittersweet taste.

Compared to other things, it's not too sweet, it's not too sickly,

and that kind of citrusy tanginess is something I really enjoy.

I like particularly the ones with the big fruit pieces in.

I can't stand peanut butter, I think it's the devil's food.

Marmalade's drop in fortunes may in part be down to what's perceived by

some as an apparent under-investment in its branding.

But if that means the image of marmalade has perhaps gone a little past

its sell by date, well, perhaps we can help.

Ollie has agreed to help promote our new marmalade,

but first we asked a branding agency to come up with an original concept

that could reignite the public's passion for the citrus spread.

It's been a fantastic, kind of, dream brief for us,

to rethink and re-envisage an entire product, really,

a sector or a range like marmalade.

So, to be able to do that has been fantastic for us,

and we've thrown ourselves into the research of it,

seeing what all the current brands are doing,

and they are super-targeted at the older demographic, really.

So, as this team got to work,

they ditched the old and brought in bold writing,

fun wording and branding that's actually dropped the word marmalade altogether.

So, we felt that words like zest and zing,

they were short and snappy and they felt like they might appeal to a

younger market, and the kind of thing that'd jump off the shelf if it

was twinned with the right design.

It would just stand a mile apart from that current traditional bakery

kitchen feel that we're getting.

Rebranding has worked for other food and drink.

By adopting a healthier image,

the sales of popcorn rose 169% from 2010-2015,

And real ale has seen a recent resurgence,

with 31 million pints being drunk in 2015 alone.

So, we think our concept changes the perception of marmalade,

because it's inviting you to use it in different ways.

It's not just something used at breakfast on your toast, you know.

The packaging literally says, "A zesty spread for much more than bread".

It's short, it's snappy,

and we feel it's something someone may pick up when they might not

necessarily pick up marmalade.

And then we're going to use, "It's a splodgy, juicy orange spread.

"Don't just put it on your bread. How about using it in your cakes?"

So, back in London, we asked superfan Ollie what he thinks of the new design.

It reads, "Squidgy, Squishy, Splodgy Spread".

Er...

My initial reaction is that...

I think it... I think it's definitely along the right lines.

It's quite punchy, it's very bright, it's very energetic.

It, er...it talks about the kind of flavours a lot more.

It doesn't actually refer to marmalade, which I find interesting.

But Ollie's a fan of marmalade already,

so we asked him to put our new pots to a wider test,

and where better to gauge public opinion than amidst the huge variety of

street food stalls at one of London's oldest and best loved markets, Lower Marsh?

Looking at these jars of marmalade, what do you think about the branding?

Well, they're all very direct, give a, you know, a very special,

punchy idea of what to use marmalade for or in.

I like the boldness of them, like, and just straight to the point,

like, "smother it on your scones."

Do you know what, I love that it tells you where you should put it.

"Use it on porridge." That's got me.

Not just... You put marmalade on porridge?

You could put marmalade on anything, cos it's very versatile.

It would probably look good if you put it on social media.

Imagine, like, you set it down on the table and then you took a little

picture of it, with a filter and everything.

It wouldn't appeal to me at all.

-Why's that?

-"Dollop some on your porridge."

I don't need to be told what to do with it, quite frankly.

I think the black tops are quite sinister.

That black and then food for me doesn't go together very well.

Maybe a younger generation will have a different idea, a different idea to that.

If you saw it in the aisle in the supermarket,

what you think you would think?

Well, I wouldn't even look at it.

If I was in the condiment aisle and I saw one of these, I would actually,

I would probably take it home.

A, cos it doesn't say it's marmalade, and I'd think it was a different type of jam.

This is more fresh, it's new,

and, you know, it's human nature to like things that are new and current.

So, I would definitely, I'd definitely give it a go.

So, it seems it's job done.

This entirely unscientific test has gone at least some way to show that

when it comes to food,

all it takes to turn someone's head and hopefully their taste buds,

is a bit of clever packaging.

I think marmalade's always going to be with us.

If you think about a lot of food trends, things go in cycles.

So, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, beers, like particularly real ales,

were very unpopular.

If you look at it now, you go into a pub,

there's hundreds of beers on offer.

So, hopefully marmalade gets picked up and, you know,

made trendy for the new generation.

Well, Ollie will be keeping his fingers crossed on that one,

and with foods regularly going in and out of fashion,

he may well get his wish, but ultimately, of course,

the thing that determines the fortunes of our favourite foods

is whether or not we choose to buy them.

So, while marketing, cost and other factors play their part, in the end,

I'm afraid, it's all down to us.

If you've got a story you'd like us to investigate,

then get in touch with us via our Facebook page, BBC Rip Off Britain,

our website, bbc.co.uk/ripoffbritain, or e-mail...

Or if you want to send us a letter, then our address is...

Wasn't it fascinating to see how we're exploring new ways of growing

vegetables here in the UK all the year round?

You know, I think that veg shortage caught quite a lot of us off guard,

and it really was a wake-up call to remind us that we cannot take the

availability of even our staple foods for granted any more.

It's all a bit precarious,

but one thing I'm delighted to say that there's no shortage of is more

Rip-Off Britain programmes coming up over the next few months.

So, do please keep telling us about the things that you'd like us to investigate,

and not just about food.

And just a thought for you -

we've got more of our holiday series on the way,

so let us know about your travel disasters and we'll see if your story is

one we can tackle on a future programme.

But, for now, that's it for us. Do join us again.

-Till then, from all of us, goodbye.

-Bye.

-Bye.