Episode 8 Rip Off Britain

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

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

Sometimes there's just too many offers,

and when you actually really look at them,

you're not really saving that much.

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.

If you buy six, it's cheaper.

But I don't want to buy six.

I want to buy one.

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

we'll uncover the truth about Britain's food so that

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 want to make the pound in your pocket go further,

and do everything we can to help make the weekly shop a breeze, rather than a battle.

And, as we do that,

we're going to be looking into what appear to be some pretty good offers

on certain foods, but not all of them are necessarily quite the deal

they appear to be.

So, as we guide you towards sniffing out the best that your money can

buy, we'll also have tips for those who've told us they have been left

feeling rather short-changed, and none of us like that.

And along the way, of course,

we'll get answers to some of the questions that you've asked us to

investigate on your behalf.

Coming up...

With pretty much all the big-name food stores offering

a lunchtime meal deal,

we'll see if you're always bagging the bargain you think you are.

Quite often when you go into the supermarket,

perhaps it's your lunch break...

-Yeah.

-You're in a bit of pressure to get in there and get out,

you don't always have time to sort of have a look

and see what's best value.

And with many of the supermarkets removing sweets and unhealthy snacks

from the checkout, is what they put there instead really any better?

That would be more or less an adult's requirements for sugar for the day.

I'm quite shocked, actually,

because it does only seem like a small portion.

You know, these days our lives seem to be getting busier and busier, don't they?

And the way we eat reflects that.

Last month, for instance,

a whopping 70% of us bought lunch to eat out and about.

So many of us are choosing to munch on the move that the food-to-go market

is now worth over £16 billion, and it shows no sign of stopping.

Shops and supermarkets are cashing in on this booming trade,

and the so-called meal deal has become a high-street stable.

But are these deals quite the bargain they appear?

We've been comparing what's on offer to see whether they're true

value for money, and which store's meal deal comes out best.

The British love affair with the good old butty

is believed to have started during the 18th century,

when the Earl of Sandwich asked for meat between two slices of bread so

as not to interrupt a game of cards, and gave his name to the result.

At the time, eating without cutlery caused quite a stir.

But today, the sandwich is the go-to lunch for many of us

and, as a nation, we eat millions every week.

But, do you know, these days, I reckon the Earl would want something a bit more than just a sandwich.

He'd probably want a drink and a snack too.

And that's where the idea of the meal deal comes from,

because you get everything, all in, for one price.

The meal deals that we see today were the brainchild of the high street store Boots.

Back in the year 2000, it launched its first offer

that gave customers a saving

if they bought a sandwich, snack and drink together.

Stephen Turnbull is the company's buying manager for nutrition.

Our customers were leading very busy lifestyles,

and ultimately what we asked our customers was,

"If we could provide a really accessible, affordable lunch, what would you want?"

So we added a main, a snack, and a drink as a combination deal.

From when we first launched to now,

the competition has increased significantly,

so more and more customers are now eating food on the go.

Today, Boots claims its meal deal has over 40 million possible combinations.

And in a shop that isn't first and foremost a food store,

it can be a real money-spinner, drawing you into buying other products.

We know that our customers come in to not only enjoy a really tasty,

healthy lunch, but they might also then buy into different toiletry items, for example.

Today, the lunchtime meal deal can be found in almost every

food outlet, from supermarkets to newsagents.

All of them appearing to offer you a real saving.

Now, anything that saves you money is obviously a very good idea,

and a meal deal sounds just the job,

but in fact not all of them are equal to each other,

and it could be that you're not getting the bargain that you thought you were.

In September 2016,

Sainsbury's changed the products you could choose in its £3 meal deal,

withdrawing its premium Taste The Difference sandwich range from the offer.

It did broaden the variety of sandwiches, and added new snacks,

but the move didn't go down well with the store's loyal lunchtime buyers.

Marketing expert Dr Gillian Hopkinson isn't surprised that here in the UK

we take our meal deals so seriously.

In Britain, we actually buy more of our food on deal or special offer

than anywhere else in Europe.

Lunchtime for many people has become really very truncated,

and there's not much time,

so it's a real convenience offer for the shopper.

From the store's point of view,

by having it concentrated in one place they can get quite a lot of

footfall through in that very critical, busy time over lunch.

Well, one person who's totally into the meal deal idea is Juan Guerrero.

Meal deals are quite important to me.

I work shifts, some of them are quite long, and if I go out,

say when I'm on a ten-hour shift,

and I'm buying food throughout the day,

it can add up to quite a lot of money.

So the fact that you can get a meal deal for around about £3 is very

important to try and cut down on the everyday costs.

But Juan finds the way that some of the supermarkets display the items confusing,

to the extent that he sometimes mistakenly buys things that

aren't in the meal deal, and ends up missing out on a potential bargain.

I do consider myself quite a savvy shopper.

I do try and find the deals,

and I can go into a supermarket and end up buying items that aren't

included in the meal deal.

I'm sure a lot of people will make the same mistake also.

Well, to look more closely at what sort of saving Juan will get with

the type of deal he'd typically choose,

he's meeting up with Dr Hopkinson.

So, we're here at Sainsbury's...

-Yeah.

-Shall we go in and get a meal deal?

She's going to see if he picks the best possible deal for his £3.

So, Juan, can you talk me through what you've got?

Yeah. I opted for a salmon and cucumber sandwich...

-Right.

-For the snack, I went for a bag of corn chips,

and then for the drink I went for an orange juice.

How was it when you were in there?

You seemed just slightly confused.

I did find it quite confusing, yes.

In this particular supermarket... it was quite difficult to work out

which items were part of the meal deal and which items weren't.

But it wasn't obvious.

The big question, however,

is whether buying all of these items as part of the meal deal

has ended up saving Juan any cash,

or if he's just got swept along by the lure of an offer.

-So, shall we have a look at what you spent?

-Certainly, yeah.

So, £1.35 on the drink,

£1.60 on the sandwich and 75p on the corn chips.

Well, if Juan had bought these items separately,

he'd have paid £3.70.

So, he did make a decent saving by opting for the £3 deal.

So, you got a reduction there of 70p.

But bigger savings were there for the taking if Juan had chosen

more expensive products included in the deal.

I did notice that you could actually have got a sandwich that was priced at £2,

and you could've got a smoothie rather than your juice and that would have been another 40p extra.

So, you could have saved about 80p more.

-That's interesting.

-So, I'm just wondering how you feel about the meal deal now.

Being somebody that likes a good bargain,

I'd probably want to go back and choose again now,

-now that you've told me.

-Maximise on your money.

Yes, that's correct. Yeah, yeah.

What's more, by heading straight for the meal deal,

Juan didn't spot some of the other offers that could have saved him more cash.

The other thing that I noticed was, when we were in there,

you actually only looked at the meal deals,

and didn't look at any other products.

I noticed that you could've got five bananas for 90p,

you could have got six bottles of water for £1.50.

Juan can spend up to £15 a week on meal deals,

but if he'd planned ahead and bought the items Gillian found, he'd have

had drinks and snacks for a week's worth of lunches for £2.10,

leaving him with £12.90 to spend on sandwiches.

And if he then chose a £1.60 sandwich everyday,

he'd make a saving of £4.60 every week.

But it seems he's rather blindsided by the convenience of his favourite deal.

Quite often when you go into the supermarket,

perhaps it's your lunch break, you go in, want to buy your meal deal,

you're kind of almost focused on the fact that you need a main, a snack, a drink.

And you're in a bit of pressure to get in there and get out.

You don't always have time to sort of have a look and see what's best value.

So, the lunchtime meal deal seems to have found it's dream market -

people who don't have time to shop around.

But to help guide all of you shoppers on the go,

we're keen to find the best value meal deal,

the one that has the biggest savings.

And to do it, we've enlisted some maths students.

They're used to crunching numbers, so we're sending them shopping

to see if they can work out the best bargains.

I'm a bit of a meal deal connoisseur,

so I'm confident I'll find the best deal.

And later in the programme we'll see how they got on,

and reveal which big-name store's meal deal got them the most filling for their shilling.

I think I've definitely got quite a competitive one here,

and it should be good compared to the other stores.

Now, in recent years you may have noticed that the checkouts at some of the nation's supermarkets

have undergone something of a transformation.

Where once the shelves alongside the tills were stuffed with

chocolate bars and sweets, we're now just as likely to find nuts,

dried fruits and all manner of other snacks

that appear to be much more wholesome treats,

but it seems that some of them may not really be that much healthier,

particularly when it comes to their sugar content.

So stand by for some jaw-dropping comparisons

as we put all of that to the test.

Here in the UK we have a really sweet tooth.

Between us we spend around almost £0.5 billion a year on chocolate bars alone.

And add all those to the rest of the tasty treats we eat,

containing not just too much sugar but fat as well,

and you understand why, according to the figures,

two thirds of British adults are now obese or overweight,

and one in three children leave primary school with a weight issue.

Now, at times it would seem that we're absolutely surrounded by

temptation from the minute you go into a shop until you actually leave it,

and when the supermarkets decided that they would take away all

the chocolate and sweets from the till and checkout and replace them

with healthier options, well, I was thrilled.

And I'm sure there was a collective sigh of relief from parents and

grandparents all over the country who'd had to have

that battle at the till when children wanted one of those treats.

And this Bolton-based group of mums no doubt speak for many, as they

relive how frustrating a family trip to the supermarket can be.

I try to avoid taking the children shopping, but if I have to then,

yeah, there's a lot of pestering.

A lot of grabbing everything and putting it on the conveyor belt.

And I also think at the checkout they tend to put it on the children's level.

Sort of eye level, buy level.

So, they kind of do know what they're doing.

The chocolates aren't that far away, so the children still notice those,

you know, as an option.

Now, Tesco actually took the decision to ban sweets

from the tills at its larger stores more than 20 years ago,

but it took a while for other supermarkets to catch up.

In 2014, Lidl carried out research into parents' reactions

to till treats, and it found that, just like our Bolton mums,

many shoppers found it hard to avoid unhealthy snacks when they were

displayed at the tills.

As a result, the chain removed sweets at all of its checkouts,

and soon after Tesco changed the snacks at its smaller Metro stores as well.

In recent years, various government initiatives have added to

the pressure on brands and shops to help us eat more healthily.

But even though many of the major supermarket chains have now

committed to selling healthier options at the tills, our mums

aren't convinced that every treat now displayed there is much better.

I have noticed that they've started having a few they think

are good snacks, but I think most of them are full of sugar.

And there are others who feel exactly the same.

One viewer e-mailed us to say that, in her view,

the so-called healthy snacks replacing confectionery at the tills

are sometimes so full of sugar and flavourings

that they're even worse than chocolate bars.

So, with that in mind, is what you'll now find typically at the checkouts really an improvement?

I'm very keen to see the impact that those changes have made,

and what we should be making of the treats we now find at the till.

Dimple Thakrar is a dietician, nutritionist, and mum-of-two.

She's watched the supermarkets change their strategy with interest,

but she too has the concerns about the new, apparently healthier offerings.

There has been a definite shift from your unhealthy snacks, your cakes,

your biscuits, your chocolates,

over to what would be perceived as healthier options.

Different types of fruit and veg in different formats -

dried, crushed, pressed.

So, yes, there has been a shift in terms of market.

However what's happened is they've over-processed fruit and vegetables

so that the products they're producing are almost unrecognisable from the real source.

By processing the food, it actually increases the calories.

Well, to see if that's true and find out exactly what

some of these new snacks are made of, we've bought goodies

from the till points of major UK retailers

to create our very own healthy checkout,

stocked entirely with things like dried fruits,

oat bars and fruit and nuts.

And it certainly looks very wholesome.

Next, we asked our parents to go wild in our aisle,

to see which items they'd be happy to throw into their trolley

if they were pestered for a last-minute treat.

Interesting. I think I've bought at least 50% of these at some point.

-Yeah.

-They're named to sound healthy, aren't they,

some of them. "Oaty flapjack."

Possibly this one, cos it's so bright.

I think also the hand-sized packets look more appealing to kids,

cos they can hold them in their hand, and less adulty.

And I would buy the packet of Fruit Bowl flake things.

Anything that's kind of yoghurt coated, probably,

thinking that it's healthy.

Well, let's see whether Dimple thinks our parents' picks

are as healthy as they appear,

starting with this packet of dried fruit flakes.

Right, great, so we've got some of your snack choices here

in front of us, and I noticed quite a few of you picked this one.

What do you think, guys? What do you think of the packaging for a start?

-Bright colours.

-Colourful.

-Yeah.

-It's aimed at children, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-It would attract.

Bright, colourful, absolutely.

-It looks like a packet of sweeties.

-Yeah.

'Well, obviously, it's not a packet of sweeties,

'but it does still pack in a lot of sugar.'

This is an 18g packet, so it's not a huge amount,

and when you look at the back - sugars, 10g.

So, over half of this is sugar.

Now, of course, dried fruit usually has fibre and nutrients as sweets wouldn't,

but even though the sugars here are entirely natural rather than added,

this small packet has more sugar content than a similar sized pack of Haribos.

10g of sugar is the equivalent to,

depending on the age of your child, around about half

of their sugar intake for the day in that little packet.

But yet that,

you would think, would be better than a packet of sweeties.

Well, the manufacture of these fruit flakes, a company called Fruit Bowl,

was keen to point out that it is better, saying,

although dried fruit may contain high concentrations of fructose,

it provides other nutrients, rather than just hollow calories.

Next, let's see what Dimple makes of

another snack some of our parents picked up.

A tropical blend of dried fruit and coconut.

Looks really healthy, doesn't it?

If you were to just have half of that,

you would be getting around about 14.5g of sugar.

And that's about half of an adult's requirements.

But, of course, you wouldn't eat half, would you?

You'd just continue to eat the whole pot.

So, that would be more or less an adult's requirements

for sugar for the day.

I'm quite shocked actually,

because it does only seem like a small portion.

And actually even having half of it is still quite bad.

And I don't think I'd be satisfied - if that was a snack for me,

I'd want to eat it all, so...

No, I won't be, I won't be having them.

SHE LAUGHS

Aldi, who make and sell at their checkouts the tropical blend mix,

told us that dried fruit is a healthier alternative to confectionery,

because it contains iron, calcium, antioxidants and dietary fibre,

and counts towards your five a day.

And there's no shortage of other dried fruit products containing

more sugar than you'd imagine.

At one checkout, for example, we found a pack of dried mango that,

if you ate the whole thing, has the equivalent of 21 cubes of sugar.

Now, that's way more than the Government's recommended daily allowance.

Whether added or natural,

the limit for a four to six-year-old is 19g of sugar.

That's the equivalent of five sugar cubes.

It's 24g, or the equivalent of six cubes, for seven to ten-year-olds.

And for anyone aged 11 and over, the recommended limit is 30g,

or roughly seven cubes,

which is about what you would find in a Mars bar.

So, that mango pack has three times as much.

And according to dentists, eating too many

of these natural sweet treats could end up contributing towards

tooth decay and obesity in almost exactly the same way as the more

traditional snacks they replaced.

In England, it's estimated that removing decayed teeth

in children under nine costs up to £40 million every year.

And nearly a quarter of five-year-olds suffer from tooth decay.

Dr Uchenna Okoye is the clinical director of her own dental practice.

Very familiar with the damage that too much sugar of any description can cause children,

she fears that parents trying to buy the right things

may now unwittingly still be getting it wrong.

In your mind, you think, well,

as opposed to kids having sweets or chocolate, or cake,

it's much better to give them raisins, give them fruit and so on,

-so you think you're doing good by giving them those alternatives.

-Yeah.

The problem with the alternatives is that they're not in their natural state.

So, give grapes, give apples, oranges, mangoes, whatever, fantastic.

It works cos it's got enough water content in.

But when it's dried, it's really concentrated sugar.

Sugar's still sugar, and I think the key thing is trying to educate parents.

And what are some of the worst cases you've seen of the children whom you've had to treat?

This goes back to when I was a student,

assisting extracting every single tooth from a seven-year-old.

It was one of the most harrowing experiences, which in the 21st century is horrific,

-cos you know that it's totally preventable.

-Mmm.

And even a few weeks ago, I had a mum, and she was

practically in tears because her daughter needed five cavities.

So, this is somebody who, I know she's passionate,

she's doing all the right things, but she didn't know that

eating raisins, and all those kinds of gooey stuff,

it can still cause damage to your teeth.

So, I think the key thing for parents is,

stick to water and stick to the natural state of the fruit,

and then you won't go wrong.

We asked some of the big supermarket about their checkout offerings.

Lidl, Tesco,

Sainsbury's and M&S confirmed that they've removed confectionery from

their tills as part of a commitment to helping customers lead healthier

lifestyles, as well as to combat the demand from children,

usually known as pester power.

Asda, however, told us it believes in customer choice,

so it continues to offer some treats at the checkout.

As for the type of products now found in most tills,

those dried fruit and nut snacks, the supermarkets told us that

these are clearly labelled to allow parents to make choices.

Back in Bolton, and school's out for our group of mums.

But now that their eyes have been well and truly opened to the contents of those checkout treats,

will they still be as sweet on picking them up the next time they're in the supermarket?

As a mum, I do think that I'm going to be more aware of what I let her eat.

I will just steer completely away from many of those snacks.

I wouldn't even go there.

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain...

After complaints that those who eat alone risk either paying more for

their food or end up wasting it,

we've advice to make your money and your meals go a lot further.

-Let's unload the whole lot and then we can go through it.

-We'll do that.

I think the deals that some supermarkets do are really rotten.

Next, it's back to those meal deal offers.

As we heard earlier, lunch on the go is as popular as ever,

and many of us, like Rip-Off Britain viewer Juan Guerrero, are

regularly drawn to the savings that a meal deal, typically a sandwich,

snack and drink, appears to offer,

even if we don't always maximise the possible savings.

I did notice that you could actually have got a sandwich that was

priced at £2, and you could have got a smoothie,

and that would have been another 40p extra,

so you could have saved 80p more.

But it seems we're not all convinced that making a meal of it

provides the value for money it once did.

Susan Vidler is from the market research company Harris Interactive,

which has done some probing into exactly this subject especially for us.

We've spoken to 1000 consumers over the last couple of days, and

what we found is that people still believe that lunchtime meal deals

are excellent value for money,

but there is a concern that value for money is starting to deteriorate

and that the choice is being restricted.

And when you say value for money, meaning that the price is going up,

or they're getting less for the same price?

It could be both, depending on the individual consumer.

And there's evidence to support that.

Do you think people are generally aware of what the items that

comprise the meal deal would cost if they were bought separately?

Not necessarily, no.

And I think the...

Some of the research we've done suggests that people are not always

sure what's in the meal deal, and that can cause some frustration.

Well, we want to know just how easy it is to navigate the big store's

meal deals, and which ones to head for for the best savings.

So, to help work out the numbers,

we've called in some of Manchester's biggest brains.

Six members of the university maths society.

ALL: Morning, Miss.

Good morning, class.

You're here because you're all maths geniuses,

and your task today is to go out and buy six different meal deals,

bring them back here, and we're going to find out

which of you has succeeded in getting the best value meal deal.

That's your task.

Class dismissed.

The students will be visiting six of the top ten shops

which sell the most sandwiches in the UK.

Tesco, Sainsbury's, Boots, M&S,

Morrisons, and the Co-op.

Between them, their meal deals offer tens of millions of combinations,

but do our students have the nous to navigate the offers

and find the best deal?

Today, I'm feeling quite nervous ahead of the challenge.

Meal deal prices quite confuse me,

so I'm looking forward to seeing how I get on.

I'm feeling quite hungry, but I'm a bit of a meal deal connoisseur,

so I'm confident I'll find the best deal.

I'm feeling excited.

I've got my best maths brain on,

so I'm looking forward to getting started.

The meal deals our students are tackling are slightly differently priced.

Morrisons, Tesco, and Sainsbury's offer theirs for £3.

Boots and the Co-op are a bit more expensive at £3.39 and £3.30, respectively.

And finally, M&S offers a deal for £4.

But at each store will we find the best savings?

First past the checkout is Omar,

who's looked at the choices in Sainsbury's.

Yeah, so I feel like I've got a really, really good meal deal.

The range of sandwich, I have to admit it was quite basic.

Um...

We had just standard tuna, sweetcorn, chicken and sweetcorn.

The shelves were a bit empty, so I did feel their range was

a bit lacking, but there was a woman restocking at the time.

And Humara's come out of Tesco looking very pleased with herself.

I thought Tescos was quite cheap,

but after looking at the individual prices of each item,

I realised that it's actually so much cheaper to get a meal deal.

Once all six students are back in the classroom,

it's time to see how they all got on.

Well, this is where the fun starts.

What we want you to do is to work out what you actually spent on your meal deals.

Secondly, what you would have spent if you'd bought

all the ingredients separately, and then from that we're going

to find out which of you got the best value meal deals.

So, off you go.

Rather them than me - crunching numbers is not my strong suit.

But it's all in a day's work for these guys.

So, with the sums complete, which store had the best deal?

Well, on the day they were working out the prices,

our students came up with very different results.

The store with the smallest saving at that particular time was Sainsbury's,

although with products worth £4.60 bought for the meal deal

price of £3, we did still get a substantial £1.60 saving.

Next was Tesco,

where products worth £5.64 were purchased for the combo price

of £3 - a reduction of £2.64.

At M&S, if the items had been bought individually,

they'd have come to £6.80, but as a meal they were just £4,

giving a saving of £2.80.

The separate prices for this little lot from Boots tot up to £6.79,

but the meal deal cost of £3.40

gave a discount of £3.39, that slashed the price by almost half.

Second place in terms of savings,

these goodies from the Co-op would have been £6.69 bought individually,

but they cost £3.25 as a combo,

reducing the price by £3.44.

But on this occasion,

it was Morrisons which came out best in our meal deal challenge -

£6.71 worth of products were picked up for just £3,

giving a hefty saving of £3.71.

Now, of course, this was simply a snapshot from the ranges on offer in

a few stores on one particular day,

but it does prove that if you do the arithmetic,

these deals can offer genuine savings.

Not surprisingly, that was a message enthusiastically emphasised by

the stores themselves when we told them our results, and several,

including Sainsbury's - which, remember,

had been criticised for taking some premium items out of its offer -

told us that they'd added new products to their meal deal range

to increase the options available.

So, it's clear that, for those on the go,

meal deals are one offer that does stack up - provided, that is,

you pay attention to the individual prices and don't mind doing a bit of

mental arithmetic to be sure you really are bagging the best bargain.

Shopping for one can be a costly business.

Now, I've noticed that many of the deals that are being offered

by leading supermarkets tend to be either multipacks

or "buy one, get one free" deals, but if you live alone,

buying in bulk can sometimes be a false economy,

and certainly when it comes to fresh food,

it can go off before you even get round to eating it.

So, we're on a mission on behalf of anyone who may ever dine alone

to see if it is possible to be a super-saving, savvy shopper for one.

There are currently over seven million of us living alone - a sizeable market,

you'd think, that retailers would be keen to keep onside.

But several viewers, including David Mortimer from York,

have been in touch to say they sometimes struggle

with the supermarket's jumbo-sized deals.

David enjoys the positives of flying solo -

no fighting over the remote or arguing about who does the dishes,

but when it comes to buying for one,

he feels rather short-changed by what the supermarkets have on offer.

When you're buying tins of peas, beans in the supermarkets,

you get the big tins and the smaller tins.

A smaller tin is OK for me, I don't want a big tin.

But the smaller tins are nearly the same price as the bigger tins,

and what I want to know is why?

But cost isn't David's only concern.

He worries about having food left over too.

I like buying fruit and carrots and potatoes,

but I find a lot of wastage.

The trouble is, is after a couple of days, the carrots go off,

put potatoes in plastic bags, they start to smell and go soft.

Supermarket deals for shopping for one,

I just don't think that they are fair to the single people.

It's just waste for me.

David may live alone,

but he's not alone in thinking that buying for one isn't easy,

or that most deals seem aimed at bigger households.

Price-wise, yes, they are unfair, cos, like I say,

they deal for the family of four, not the single person, so my dad

has to pay whatever the same as I would have to for a family.

If you've got quite a few children, you're buying two-for-one,

that's OK, but if there's only one of you, then no, it's a waste,

because it would probably go off.

The thing with supermarkets, they really aim for the family,

so people think they're getting a good deal, and they're buying more

food, but you can have food waste, then, if you are buying for one.

But according to branding expert David Whittle,

retailers are tuning into the needs of single diners,

and he believes they'd be crazy not to.

There is a huge market for meals for one,

targeted at single people,

and this is because of how we live our lives now.

We are time-poor.

If you go back sort of 10 and 20 years,

when we used to have the traditional TV dinner, what we have now,

ready meals have changed and have improved dramatically.

What we're trying to do is not for you to sit on your lap with a tray,

is almost create a gourmet experience at home

without you having to do it,

and that's the big change, so we all...

Any negatives that were associated, perhaps round meals for one

or the ready meal market have all but gone.

And it's true - when we checked,

there was indeed a fantastic range of meals for one

on offer in every major supermarket.

But pound-for-pound, you can pay a lot more when buying for one.

At Tesco, for example,

the shepherd's pie for one in the Finest range was £3.50,

but the pack which serves two was £5,

which works out £1 less per head.

Similarly, buying a single portion pack

of Sainsbury's Classic cottage pie costs £2.40,

while the same meal packaged for two was £3.90,

so if you bought the larger pack, you'd save 45p per head.

And at Asda, the Italian beef lasagne for one cost £2.17.

If you went for the pack for two, that cost £3.

You'd save 67p per portion.

Well, when we contacted the supermarkets Asda and Tesco,

they didn't want to comment, but Sainsbury's told us

it always looks to provide the best value and said

that the cost of producing, packaging and transporting products

that contain more than one serving is typically lower.

But we were keen to help David and other viewers buying for one make

their meals and their money stretch further,

so we've drafted in Gilli Cliff, who runs a cookery school.

WATER RUNS

Beautiful cabbage!

Well, I think the problem with cooking for one

is that it's really boring, because you either cook a lot and then you

eat the same thing day after day, or you just don't feel inspired.

I think the deals that some supermarkets do are really rotten,

because they're always at the front of the store,

so you walk into a supermarket,

and there you see something like, you know,

"Buy a kilo of this or a kilo of that,"

and you think, "Well, I don't want a kilo, I'll just go and buy a few."

And you pay more for a few than you do if you bought the kilo bag.

Very frustrating.

So, David has brought his normal weekly shop around to Gilli's...

-Hello, David!

-Hello, Gilli.

-DOG BARKS

..to see if she can give him any ideas and tasty titbits.

But first, Gilli wants to find out more about his shopping habits.

So, how often do you shop?

-I go twice a week, each time around about £30 or something like that, for each shop.

-Oh...

-30 a week, yeah, so about £60 a week.

-Yeah.

-For one.

-For one.

-Yeah...

It's, um, I mean, it's an average budget,

you should be able to do really well for that.

Well, let's see what's Gilli makes of what David will typically put in his shopping bag.

Let's unload the whole lot, and then we can go through.

-We'll do that.

-Some nice fish.

-Old Cotswold Legbar eggs. Mmm.

-Yeah.

Cabbage.

Two lots of mince, a bit of beef.

A packet of carrots, some veg.

A couple of tins of peas.

-A good load of stuff.

-That's it.

And what did this come to?

It come to £24.

I think you got a jolly good deal here.

Even so, Gilli can understand the frustrations David has

with how much some of his shopping costs.

Now then, there's a sticky story about the peas, isn't there?

-There is.

-Small tin of 145g.

-Yeah.

-So, that is less than half the size of this tin, which is 300g.

So, that must cost less than half price.

About 10p difference.

-No! 10p difference between the small one?

-Yeah.

-That's daylight robbery.

-It is.

And not just with the peas.

Now, tell me about the beans.

200g for the small tin.

-Yeah.

-And...

..415, so less than half.

-Yeah.

-So, this was...

-Same again, about 10p.

No! Between a big one and a small one?

Yeah.

-It looks as though these shops aren't out to help the person shopping on their own.

-That's right.

I'm really amazed, I have to say,

at how, as a single shopper, you are so disadvantaged.

You really are, aren't you?

You just have to work harder at cutting things down when you get them home.

Up next is the mince,

and Gilli's spotted another way that David loses out.

You've been done here, haven't you?

I've done, been done, yeah.

Well, you see, it says three for £10.

Yeah.

-Erm... But you...

-I haven't got the storage at all.

-You couldn't save yourself the money...

-No.

..so you've bought a big one and a small one.

-Yeah.

-Was that half the price of that?

Cos it's half the weight.

No, it wasn't.

Now, this time, the difference in price between the larger and the smaller pack wasn't as much,

but David is irritated that he can't really take advantage of the best value offers.

But now Gilli has an idea of what is in David's shopping bag,

she's got some little gems for him - and I don't mean lettuce.

I find that if you buy drumsticks or thighs or thighs, chicken thighs,

they're actually a much better value,

and actually they've got much better flavour.

So, it would be worth buying a pack, and if, say,

you buy a big pack of chicken thighs, you could freeze some easily,

or you could cook them all and then freeze it as a cooked portion.

And Gilli says the key with David's veg is finding a way to store them

that keeps them fresh the longest.

Now then, this veg...

This bag, I'm just looking to see if it's got any holes in it,

cos of course potatoes don't do well in polythene bags

-if you store them.

-No, I've noticed that.

Yeah, well, what I do, actually I keep mine in the fridge,

-I have to say...

-I've thought about that.

And I always either take them out of the bag, or else I make sure that

I've got a great big hole in the bag so that the air circulates.

Yeah.

And the same with the carrots, cos that's quite a lot of carrots.

-That is.

-It's enough to make your hair curl, to be honest.

So that's carrots and potatoes.

Now, this white cabbage,

I find they last for a really long time, cabbages.

-This is a very firm one.

-Yeah.

Will you serve that raw or cooked?

-Cooked.

-You wouldn't make a coleslaw out of it?

No, I've never made a coleslaw in my life.

DAVID LAUGHS

Do you like eating coleslaw?

-Yes, I do, yes.

-So, you could do that, you've got carrots as well.

-Carrots, mix them up, yeah.

-Yeah.

I think food waste is a real problem.

Nobody likes throwing away food,

but what do you do if you've got so much food and then it goes off?

And storage is often a problem, cos if you live on your own,

you probably live in a fairly small place,

so you won't have a lot of storage.

And if you haven't got a deep freeze, then where do you keep things?

And even dry storage, you know, you just need a lot of room.

To encourage him to think about using up his food in different ways,

Gilli shows David how to make a quick, easy meal

designed to help anyone love their leftovers.

-At the end of the week, I often have lots of bits and pieces left in the fridge.

-Yeah.

So, I was going to make a sort of Spanish omelette,

or frittata-type thing.

-Nice to have in front of the telly, actually.

-Yeah.

Gilli is using some leftover Spanish chorizo.

Which I have to say, I love, you know, it's spicy.

Yes, it is, it's very nice.

Bacon, cooked potatoes...

SIZZLING

It's just so easy.

The cabbage and carrots, eggs,

and finally she adds some cheese.

That is a lovely smell, that is, it smells very nice.

-Getting hungry now?

-Yes!

-THEY LAUGH

So that really is an end-of-the-week...supper dish.

That's not bad. Mmm.

I'm going to try that this week.

-Excellent.

-Yes!

-Excellent.

-DAVID LAUGHS

Do you know, this is absolutely fantastic, this is.

Great, David!

Can I take this home with me?

-You certainly can!

-THEY LAUGH

By the time he leaves, David is armed with plenty of buying,

storage and cooking tips -

all aimed at making the lives of those living alone not only more

affordable, but tastier too.

That demo was absolutely great.

I've never thought of doing anything like that.

It's given me inspiration how to do things.

Anything what you put in the fridge, you forget about, is...

Just make a meal out of it - and stop wastage.

If you feel short-changed by any of the products you buy,

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

then do get in touch via our Facebook page...

our website...

..or e-mail us at...

Or if you'd rather send us a letter, then our address is...

So that's the end of our trips around the shops today.

We hope you've picked up some tips to make sure that you're always

getting the best value for money for your household,

whatever its size. And if you got some tips of your own,

do please share on our Facebook page.

And remember, as well, that our team is always keen to hear

your experiences on all sorts of consumer topics,

in particular our holiday series will be returning in the New Year,

so we'd be especially keen to hear all about your travel stories

so that we can make sure

we're investigating the subjects that matter most to you.

But in the meantime, well,

I'm afraid that's where we have to leave you for today.

Thanks, as ever, for your company,

and wherever you're having your next meal,

we certainly hope that you found the deal that really suited you.

We'll see you again very soon, but for now,

from all the team here at Rip-Off Britain, goodbye.

-Goodbye.

-Bye.