Episode 4 Rip Off Britain: Food

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.

I think they encourage you to buy more than you need

and that causes a lot of waste.

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.

It makes my blood boil, because I feel like they're tricking people.

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

we 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,

Now, when you feel you've had a raw deal,

this is the programme which will set about to discover why.

This series we're looking at food,

something very close to our own hearts and which, of course,

makes up a really big chunk of all our spending.

And indeed, with what we eat accounting for so much

of EVERY household budget,

you want to make absolutely sure that you really are getting

the very best value for what you buy, but, you know,

with food prices rising all the time,

that's not always so easy.

So, it's no wonder that you've been telling us that, all too often,

you feel that you're forking out rather more than you should

for your food and your drink.

But today we'll be getting to the bottom of whether that is the case,

looking at some of the prices we pay in shops, restaurants,

even on the go as we work and if we discover

that we're paying over the odds,

we also have advice on what you can do to try and keep those bills down.

Coming up, we'll be checking out why soft drinks in pubs

can mean hard times for your wallet.

At the end of it all, it's a drop of syrup and a bit of fizzy water

-and this is what you pay three quid for.

-Yeah.

-Shock, horror!

And there are more vegetarians than ever before,

but are they getting a raw deal when eating out,

paying more than they would for meat?

Stuffed butternut squash, vegetarian, £11.45,

more expensive than scampi.

For the same price and sometimes even less,

than the cost of a long car journey, cheap, no-frills flights

mean that these days, we can just zip around the globe

for next to nothing, but the rise of the cheap seats

has also brought a whole stack of extra costs.

There are baggage charges, seat charges,

and, of course, the price of food and drink on flights,

all of which can, occasionally, add up to rather more

than the price of the fare itself.

So, not surprisingly, some of you feel very aggrieved

about what you see as sky-high charges

for those on board refreshments.

Especially when you compare them with the prices on the ground.

1958, and the first transatlantic passenger jet flight.

Back then, flying used to mean glamour and excess and, as a result,

was pretty much out of the reach of many.

But in the mid-90s, all of that changed.

The thrift class was born

and Britain fast became a nation of no-frills flyers.

And whilst convenience and low-prices

became the order of the day, the little luxuries

that we had previously taken for granted now came at a price.

When you've taken the trouble to track down the best price possible

on the cost of your flight,

and you've packed everything in an overnight case,

so that you don't have to pay any excess baggage,

then it's only right that you should feel quite smug

that you've got by far the best deal you possibly could

on the cost of your trip, but of course there is another way

in which the low-cost airlines are able to take

quite a lot of your money.

And that's when it comes to being fed and watered during the trip.

The prices on board can be eye-watering.

One travel website did a survey during last summer's holiday season.

They claim that the average mark-up on ten UK and Irish airlines

compared to the nearest equivalent High Street price

was 372% for savoury snacks.

And, even more, 386%, when it came to soft drinks.

-Do you ever fly low cost airlines?

-Only occasionally.

When you do, what do you do about food, do you buy on-board?

-No, I take it with me.

-Why do you do that?

Because it's already rather overpriced.

-I never buy the food on the plane.

-Why not?

-Too expensive, horrible.

What do you do about food, do you buy it on-board

-or take it with you?

-I take it with me, if I can.

-Why is that?

-It's cheaper, it's nicer.

It's better value, yeah.

So, you'd never think of buying the higher cost food on the plane?

-No, I wouldn't.

-I think, as a mum, you tend to take it with you. Yes.

Yes, I think it's very expensive, for a bacon sandwich,

it's about nearly a fiver.

-It's too expensive.

-OK, I have got your snacks for the plane.

Paul and Leslie Scanlon from Manchester wrote to us

after becoming increasingly frustrated with the prices

that the budget airlines charge for food in the air.

And Paul misses the old days, when meals were always included.

I don't think we should be paying for the food and drink on planes,

because it should be part of the price of the air ticket itself,

you know, you're a captured audience, it's like open season,

so they then come up with this rule, "We'll charge you what we want,

"because we know you're going to be thirsty, we know you'll be hungry,

"so we'll dive in there and show you the menu and then it'll be,

'I'll have some of that'. Not me. I'll sit there starving,

die of thirst before I would buy anything on a plane.

In fact, the mark-ups can be sky-high.

For instance, if you buy a tube of Pringles on a Ryanair flight,

now that will set you back 400% more

than you'd expect to pay in a supermarket.

And if you've got a sweet tooth and you fancy a Twix,

when you're on an easyJet flight, it'll cost you £1.20,

which is almost double what you'd expect to pay on the High Street.

And exactly the same goes for KitKat when you're flying with Jet2.

Now, the airlines know, of course, that they can get away with this,

because they do, quite literally, have a captive market.

You see what you're paying for it and you know

what you've paid for it back at home, so why the big difference?

You know, they're getting more and more money out of you,

which just sticks in my craw, it really does.

It just goes on and on until you arrive where you've arrived

and you think, "God, I'm glad that's over!"

But Paul's idea of hell has become an nice little earner

for the low-cost airlines,

so much so that it's now a vital part of their business plan.

Simon Calder is a frequent flyer and he's got some top tips.

I don't really have a problem with the amount that they charge

on board flights, because frankly, if you're half-organised,

you should be able to do better yourself.

The ideal way to do this is, of course,

go shopping at your local delicatessen, maybe the market,

maybe the supermarket, and stock up

with lots of good, fresh food for the journey.

Are you allowed to take that through?

You are, as long as it hasn't got anything threatening, like yoghurt,

which counts as a liquid, but anything else, you know,

beautiful, fresh sandwiches or whatever, is fine.

You can take that through security and eat it on board.

Now, when you get to the position that many of us are in,

thinking, "Gosh, we've so much to do."

You can't get round to getting sandwiches in advance,

it's still, I reckon, almost always better to buy the stuff

from the shops, from the restaurants from the cafes,

on the ground, than it's to buy in the air.

With the ban on liquids, taking your own drinks on board

has become that bit more difficult.

The airlines are more than happy to quench your thirst,

but only at a price.

A 500 millilitre bottle of water can cost as little as 23p

in the supermarket, yet order one on board an Aer Lingus flight

and, you could be paying as much as £2.20 for it,

and that's over 900% more.

But, Simon has a top tip to save you money.

So many people don't realise this, you've got your water bottle,

you get to security, oh my goodness, it's going to be confiscated.

That doesn't happen to me, because I turn up with an empty water bottle,

take it through and although it's almost impossible these days

to find a water fountain once you're air-side,

through security, every single catering outlet

in every single airport I have ever asked, is obliged to give you water.

The airlines don't agree that their food prices are too high.

No surprises there, then. Saying that comparing what THEY charge

with what you pay at the supermarket,

isn't comparing like with like,

as supermarkets have economies of scale and lower supply chain costs,

compared to the specialised, loading costs that airlines face.

All the airlines we spoke to told us that they believe their products

are good quality and value for money,

when compared to similar outlets.

Such as coffee shops, bars or restaurants.

Some, like easyJet, also point out that they have meal deals

that offer additional value.

While Aer Lingus said that their prices

have not gone up for two years.

And Ryanair reiterate that passengers are free

to bring your own snacks on board if they wish.

Back in Manchester, Paul and Leslie are busy planning

their next trip away and Paul has a clear message

for anyone thinking of parting with their cash in the air.

I feel like standing on a soapbox and saying, "Come here,

come round here, let me tell you what it's all about.

"What's going on, in this airport and on the aircraft,

"as soon as you arrive.

"Psychological, you'll pay and pay and pay

and then wonder why you've no money left halfway through your holiday."

Now, if there's one thing that can really put a dampener on a night out

in the pub, it's rising drink prices, and that's particularly

the case even if you're not having anything alcoholic.

The evening can soon lose it's fizz when you realise that the

soft drinks might've worked out more expensive than the average pint.

And while for many pubs that, of course, can be

a valuable source of income in these tough times,

it doesn't go down very well with consumers, or even, it seems,

with some publicans themselves.

Because here's one who's bucking the trend.

At the Churchill Arms in Hampshire,

they've come up with a very nifty idea to not only get more

trade through the door, but to tackle what's long been

one of pub-goers' biggest gripes, the price of soft drinks.

Landlady Tanya Wynyard would like to be able to cut them

right across the board, but that just isn't realistic.

In order to keep going, sometimes you can't lower the prices.

Soft drinks and food side of the business are what hold up

the rest of the business, really.

So instead, keenly aware that it is designated drivers who often

feel most aggrieved about having to pay high prices for soft drinks,

Tanya has hit on a novel solution.

I try and encourage my customers that

if there's one driving that they don't have to pay for their drinks.

-That's it.

-Cheers.

The gentleman's given me his car keys and I've issued him with a designated

driver key ring, and then he's chosen his soft drink

and he can present his key ring every time he wants a drink now

and get free drinks for the rest of the night.

Well, Tanya's initiative certainly seems to be proving popular.

It's a win-win, really. My friends get to drive home, I have Coke.

It's quite expensive even when you're driving to go out

with your friends, so, yeah, the free drinks, it's pretty spot on.

Mm. Good incentive to go out.

But Tanya is one of only a handful of landlords across the country

to give her non-drinking customers a helping hand,

and when you see how lucrative the fizzy stuff is, you can understand

why other publicans are so keen to protect their profits on them.

The average cost of a soft drink in pubs and bars is £1.54,

which may not sound a lot, but make that a pint,

and it'll most likely set you back around £3.31.

Now, that's 28 pence more than the typical price of a pint of beer,

which is closer to £3.03.

So how much of the cost of a draught soft drink is likely to be profit?

I've asked a food scientist to take a look.

Well, we're in the food testing laboratory,

and fortunately we have with us our food test boffin, Peter Maynard.

So, Peter, today we're going to talk about soft drinks.

I mean, this looks a pretty ominous carton.

The soft drinks you get in pubs,

they're actually made up in the pub from a syrup and a fizzy water,

so if you look carefully at the barman dispensing your drink,

you'll see that he uses a gun, and there are two pipes coming from it.

One is with fizzy water and one is with this syrup.

There are seven litres of syrup here,

-and altogether it make up 45 litres of drink.

-Whoa.

What, this will make up 45 litres?

That will make up 45 litres of drinks.

'Peter has agreed to play barman for us,

'and make up a draught soft drink as it would be served in a pub.'

So you just put the syrup in and now you're going to top

-it off with fizzy water.

-Top it up with fizzy water.

-And is that what we get when we order?

-That's what you get.

So let's go back then to cost.

What exactly is in this drink that anybody might ask for in a pub

-or in a restaurant?

-Certainly.

Well, there's obviously the syrup from the container,

and that will cost maybe 15 pence, something like that.

-And yet we're paying anything up to £3.

-You are indeed.

The end of it all is a drop of syrup and a bit of fizzy water

and this is what you pay three quid for.

-Yep.

-Shock, horror!

PETER LAUGHS

I'm fairly horrified by it, yes. It's, it's...

There is a large profit to be made in this.

So why are we being charged around three quid a drink,

when the true cost is really just a fraction of that?

Well, there is

some work that goes into turning this syrup into a drink.

And of course, there are costs that come out of the price the customer

pays to cover things like staff, electricity and, of course, VAT.

But even with all that factored in, it seems highly likely that

soft drinks are making healthy profits for the pub trade.

A profit most consumers say is just too big.

I think the price of soft drinks in pubs is

extortionate in comparison to how much you can buy them

for and in comparison to the cost of alcohol as well.

I've been in some places where you have to pay,

like, £2.50 for a soda and lime, which is a bit much.

I do think it's a little bit unfair, and it makes me think,

"Well, why don't I just have a beer?".

It may be unpopular, but it doesn't look like our pockets

are going to get relief any time soon.

Robin Black writes with the publicans' trade paper.

Soft drinks are really important to pubs.

About one in four of all drinks sold in a pub will be a soft drink,

and that's getting bigger.

More people are eating food in pubs, and about 44% of meals are consumed

with a soft drink, so ultimately,

although people are complaining, they are paying for it.

And also, if I ran a business,

I'd want to ring fence margin where I could get it. Times are tough.

You don't want to suddenly start cutting prices now.

Now obviously, all business need to make a profit,

but there's something that may stick in your throat a little bit

when it comes to comparing the price of a soft drink

with that of a pint of beer.

54.3 pence of every pint of beer goes straight to the taxman

and Excise Duty.

But soft drinks simply are not taxed in the same way.

So should it be the case that a pint of a soft drink

should at least be the equivalent amount cheaper than a pint of beer?

Well, we did our own pub crawl. I'm afraid that wasn't quite the case.

We sent our researchers to some pubs in Liverpool City Centre.

Now, 11 of the pubs they visited offered orange juice by the pint.

In three of those pubs,

the OJ was actually more expensive than their cheapest pint of beer.

In four places, the juice was cheaper, but not by nearly as much

as the 54 pence they were saving by not having to pay the tax

they would on the alcoholic drink.

In fact, out of 11 pubs, only three passed the 54 pence tax

saving onto their soft drink customers.

So in other words, most of those pubs are likely to be making

more money out of their soft drinkers than their beer drinkers.

But maybe there is an alternative to the high cost of soft drink,

because behind the bar, why not just order a pint of good

old corporation pop, in other words better known as tap water?

And the law is on the consumer's side,

because since 2010, the legal requirement for any pub,

restaurant, indeed, any establishment selling alcohol,

is that they have to provide tap water absolutely free.

But is it as simple as going into a bar

and asking for a pint of the free stuff?

Cheers.

The industry is worried that if more of us

insist on our right to free water,

we could see even more neighbourhood pubs shut their doors for ever.

Recent research was done which shows that publicans are getting more

and more worried about tap water, in fact,

63% of them said that it was damaging to the long term future of the trade.

If you have people sitting in your pub who are essentially not

paying for anything but using all the overheads, your electricity,

space where other people might be paying for a product,

listening to live music you've put on or anything like that,

so it's becoming a bigger and bigger issue.

We asked the British Beer and Pub Association what

they thought about the price of soft drinks in pubs.

They told us they believe that they're competitively priced,

especially compared with what's charged in restaurants.

They added that the prices are inevitably going to be

higher than in the supermarket, for the same reason that a pint of beer

is more expensive, because of the greater cost and service provided.

But back in Hampshire, landlady Tanya thinks that, by giving drivers

free soft drinks, rather than losing money,

she might overall be boosting trade at the Churchill Arms.

You'd hope that they'd have a car full of people when they come,

and you might keep those customers in the pub longer

if they're driving everyone home and everyone's enjoying themselves

and they might stay longer.

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain...

What's behind our rising food prices?

We reveal why the cost of a Sunday lunch is going up and up.

We had a disastrous year last year with the weather.

We probably left a quarter of our crop in the ground.

We just couldn't get it out.

You know, I often think that the fun of going out for a meal is

very often just looking through the menu

and deciding what you're going to order.

Now sometimes there is almost too much to choose from.

Unless, that is, you're one of the estimated three million

vegetarians in this country.

And while, if you don't eat meat you're probably quite used to

having a bit less of a choice, recently you've been writing

to us about something that's perhaps a little bit more unexpected.

Because, despite the fact that the raw ingredients usually cost

quite less than meat, in some of the best known chains,

vegetarian meals are actually more expensive than other dishes.

So, when one viewer got in touch asking us to find out why,

well, that was a challenge we couldn't resist.

Over the last two decades, Britain has undergone a food revolution.

We eat out more than ever before.

It's reckoned 19 million of us do it at least once a week

in a market thought to be worth around £80 billion.

Pat and Mick Brown from Suffolk are self-confessed foodies,

but despite the array places to eat near their home,

they find themselves limited in their choices for one reason.

I became a vegetarian when I was a teenager.

I didn't like the way animals were treated

so I said I wasn't eating meat any more.

For me, it was a New Year's resolution

at the turn of the century, 2000-2001, and I thought if I could

find a way of avoiding eating meat and fish, then I'll give it a try.

They've watched as, overall, British menus have become

more imaginative and creative, as far as they're concerned,

the veggie options have been neglected.

I think most vegetarians you speak to, their heart sinks

when they see vegetarian lasagne,

which nine times out of ten is probably out of a freezer,

or at the moment goat's cheese seems to be rolling everywhere,

so everywhere seems to be goat's cheese...tart.

That lack of choice was most recently highlighted

when they went out to celebrate Mick's birthday.

Penne pasta with tomato sauce.

The pasta was overcooked, it was like slime.

Increasingly, it's not just the range of dishes that bothers them,

the price can often leave a nasty taste in their mouths,

especially compared with the meat and fish alternatives.

I have a few menus here from various local hostelries

and establishments, and what Pat I are finding is that

the vegetarian dishes are priced pretty much the same

as the meat and fish dishes.

See if I can give you an example here.

Stuffed butternut squash, vegetarian, £11.45.

More expensive than scampi, cod.

The same price as a salmon dish.

It's a feeling that unites vegetarians

right across the country.

One of the things that members tell us

is they find it very challenging to get the same choice as meat eaters.

That's a big issue.

A fairly common kind of comment is that people get offered pasta

that has been frozen and microwaved,

and must have cost pennies to produce.

The other issue is the whole quality issue,

that we want the same quality meal as meat eaters get.

Indeed, a quick look at what's on offer

in the national restaurant chains seems to bear this out.

We've been checking out the menus of some of the best-known

names in the restaurant business and in most cases, they charge

just slightly less for the vegetarian meals than they do for the meat ones.

On average, it's about 20-40p.

There are a few restaurants where they actually charge significantly

less for their vegetarian dishes, but surprisingly,

there are those restaurants who charge more for vegetarian dishes

than they do for the meat ones.

Take the popular pub chain Slug and Lettuce.

Their meat lasagne costs £7.25,

but the butternut squash, spinach and goat's cheese lasagne

is a pound more.

And at Gourmet Burger Kitchen,

the classic burger costs £6.70,

but the veggie bean burger costs £6.95.

That's 25p dearer.

Meanwhile at Nando's,

the chicken breast fillet costs £5.95,

but the roasted Portobello mushroom burger costs £6.30,

so 35p more expensive than the meat.

It's hardly controversial to say that

when you go round the supermarket, generally meat is more expensive

than veg, so how can a restaurants justify charging more

for a vegetarian dish that's made with cheap ingredients?

Are we right to expect a veggie meal to cost less?

To put that to the test, we asked home economist Gillian Marczak

to take a good look at those meals from Nando's and Gourmet Burger Kitchen

to see if she could see any obvious reason

why the veggie options should cost more?

First, Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

She's taking both burgers apart to see what's inside.

Firstly the bean burger.

Breaking it carefully and there I can find they've got butter beans,

little bits of dried chillies in there along with other spices.

I can see red kidney beans

and then I moved on to the beefburger, which was an awful lot easier,

because all I really did was break it in half,

and there I found there was really just only meat.

A few spices on the outside.

On a first look at those ingredients,

Gillian can't see any obvious reason why the veggie burger costs more.

I went to my local supermarket

and I purchased a steak burger, which cost me £1.25,

and I purchased the ingredients for what I thought

was in the vegetarian bean burger.

That would have cost me 65p approximately.

I think that's where GBK are probably making their most profit,

from the vegetarian bean burger.

So if the basic ingredients can cost around half

the price of those in the meaty one, why does Gourmet Burger Kitchen

charge more for the bean than the beef?

It would be easy to think they are making their profits at the expense

of vegetarians, but Gillian says it's not necessarily that simple.

The only thing that I don't know, as far as the company is concerned,

is to whether they actually have to produce these bean burgers on site.

Of course, if they have to make them on-site,

then there's an extra cost involved with that.

And it turns out that is the explanation.

Gourmet Burger Kitchen told us that their veggie burger

is made from scratch by the chefs in each of their restaurants,

combining over 12 different ingredients,

so it's more labour-intensive to produce than their beefburgers

which are delivered fresh every day direct from the butcher.

Next, Gillian dissects the food from Nando's,

the vegetarian Portobello and halloumi burger,

and the chicken breast fillet burger.

Tops off. Have a look what's underneath.

This time, the veggie option doesn't work out cheaper than meat,

thanks to those pricey Portobello mushrooms.

The raw ingredients actually cost about the same.

The costings I have put together are round about £1.34 for both products.

Even so, you'll still have to pay more for the veggie option.

Nando's told us that the ingredients in their Portobello mushroom burger

do make it more expensive to produce, but the company

point out that they do have veggie choices that are cheaper than the chicken.

They also said that because chicken remains their most popular dish,

they buy more of it

and can pass on these economies of scale as benefits to customers.

Similarly, the Slug and Lettuce pub chain explained the difference

in price between their meat and veggie lasagne

because the popularity of the meat version gives them

more bulk buying power with their supplier.

And they said that while the majority of their veggie meals

are less expensive than their meat dishes, some do use

costlier ingredients such as goat's cheese or butternut squash.

But in any case, Suffolk chef Shane Aldridge agrees

that it's not just the cost of the ingredients

that determines the price you will pay for a veggie meal out.

Sometimes the general public don't understand all of the costs

they're paying when they eat out.

They tend to look at what is on the plate and identify that

with being where the value lies, on the plate,

rather than the bigger picture of all the other overheads

that are associated with not just that dish but the ambiance,

staff training, keeping the heating on. Those sorts of things.

The other thing is some vegetarian ingredients are quite high in price,

comparable to meat.

100 grams of cashew nuts would cost similar

to 100 grams of beef, to be frank.

About 10% of all meals that Shane currently sells at his pub

are vegetarian, and he expects that number to grow.

There's more and more people eating vegetarian food.

There's not more vegetarians necessarily

but there's more people enjoying vegetarian food,

so plainly you need to be catering for people that are interested

in eating vegetarian food and not just vegetarians particularly.

And that is music to Pat and Mick's ears,

because while it seems that their beef about veggie prices may be

more complex than it first appears, what they'd like to see most

of all is restaurants boosting their choice of meat-free meals.

I would say, have a serious think

about broadening your vegetarian options and you

might be pleasantly surprised how many people take you up on them.

Maybe even people who aren't vegetarians.

So-called all you can eat buffets can seem like a real bargain

for hungry diners, but who's really getting the best end of the deal?

Food critic Richard McComb has been helping himself to some tasty

secrets about what's really going on at the buffet counter.

Typically in buffets, you'll see an awful lot of pasta,

rice and noodles, and it looks all pretty good stuff to us.

The thing with all these big foods, however,

is that they're carbohydrates. They tend to fill you up really quickly,

and for this reason, buffets absolutely love them.

They want you to eat as much of this stuff as possible.

You eat lots of carbohydrates, you're going to eat less

of their expensive stuff, so that's the meats and the fishes.

Of course, after a big meal often follows a big thirst,

another money-maker for the restaurant.

The whole issue of drinks in all you can eat buffets is a minefield.

In some cases, buffet bosses know they might even take a bit of a hit

on some of the food, but they know they're going to make up for it on the drinks sales.

The flip side is that some places will

go down the route of offering you various promotions on drink,

so there might be free refills of soft, fizzy drinks,

like Coke and lemonade, which looks brilliant.

You can drink as much of the stuff as you like.

That's exactly what the buffets want you to do, because the more of this

fizzy, sugary stuff you drink, the more bloated you'll feel

and the less food you're going to eat.

As for the quality of the food, Richard says fine dining it isn't.

The food quality is usually pretty low,

sourcing in meats from industrial-sized farms,

from mass caterers.

They use frozen foods, they use processed foods.

Actual cooking of raw, fresh ingredients is pretty negligible.

Other tricks of the buffet trade might include staff in chef's whites

to create the impression it's all freshly cooked,

and small plates with not much room to put things on.

There's a reason why these places have sprung up

throughout our high streets and suburban centres.

That's because they're money pits.

Everything in these buffets is about driving down costs.

You are just a unit, not really a customer, in there to eat as much

cheap food as possible, fill you up with drinks, get you at the door.

How much do you spend on your weekly food shop?

For many of us, it's becoming more and more difficult to stick

to a budget because the prices on the shelf keep going up.

But is there more to these rocketing prices than simply

supermarket profits?

Kate Larkin from Manchester is a busy mother of three.

Like most of us these days, she has to manage her money carefully

starting with a strict weekly shopping budget.

You can get some good offers if you look.

I do buy offers and multipacks of things

but I won't buy stuff just because it's on offer.

I'll only buy the things that are on offer that we would eat.

But until recently,

we've become a nation accustomed to falling prices

and mothers like Kate didn't have to pay such close attention

to the food budget.

Food prices dropped throughout much of the second half

of the last century, primarily because of scientific advancements,

the green revolution that allowed us to grow a lot more food

on the same amount of land relatively straightforwardly.

The world was rosy.

We're getting into a situation now where the demand for food

is outstripping supply.

There isn't enough land to produce that, so as soon as demand

starts outstripping supply, you're in a situation where prices

are going to go up and the food is going to go

to the people who will pay most for it.

Bold and urgent steps must be taken to tackle spiralling food prices,

the head of the United Nations has warned.

The rising cost of food has become one of the most pressing problems facing the world economy.

The first really big food price spike was 2007-2008,

and food prices went through the roof on a global basis.

We have got used to stack them high, sell them cheap.

Buy lots of food and waste it,

and in the future we won't be able to afford to do that.

As the cost of fresh meat and veg goes up and up,

many of us are having to be more selective about the food

we put into our shopping trolleys.

Does this mean we have to have a real rethink

about some of our favourite meals?

Meals like the Sunday roast.

Kate's still serving up Sunday lunch for her family

but she's noticed that the cost of the ingredients has been shooting up.

The price of a Sunday roast has gone up but as a family,

it's one meal that we all thoroughly enjoy.

It's a good meal, it's a healthy meal

and I just think it sets you all up for your working week.

It's one of our favourite food rituals

and we cooked 1.5 billion traditional roast dinners in 2012,

so how exactly has the price changed?

We looked at the cost of a typical roast dinner with meat

and all the trimmings, potatoes, Yorkshire puddings,

vegetables and gravy, and compared the current price for each

ingredient with what you'd typically have paid a year ago.

One supermarket comparison website has found that the average price

for a meal jumped up by nearly 20% from an average

of around £8.87 to £11.01.

That's almost four times the average rise in food prices,

so why such a leap?

The answer begins in the soil.

The humble potato. It's the staple of many meals,

but could it soon be priced of our plates?

I've come to a very wet Kent, the Garden of England, to find out

why the wholesale price of potatoes has doubled since 2012.

So Matthew, tell me about the problems that you've been

having on the potato farm with the weather.

It's a really carried on from 2012.

We had a disastrous year last year with the weather.

We probably left a quarter of our crop on the ground.

We just couldn't get it out.

Have the problems that you're describing with the harvesting

had any impact on the price of the potato?

From 2012, the price per kilo went up, to the consumer, 20p,

so for a kilo of potatoes,

would cost the household 80p, and that would feed a family of five.

-Did the price to you go up?

-It went up a little bit.

Which helped us because of the hard work to try to get them

in and out, and also our costs over the last five years,

have probably gone up 20-25%, so we've needed a barrier to help us.

So has this year been any better?

So Matthew, we are standing here in the pouring rain,

it's a miserable day, we're standing in a sea of mud with a few little

green bits, what's been going on?

The rain just hasn't stopped.

Five weeks ago, the harvest was going smoothly up until then

and then we've not had the machines out here since.

We've got 80 tonnes left in this field,

that should have been done and sent in to be packed and consumed.

It doesn't look like we'll get them out.

Thankfully, the rain came late in the harvest

and although the last of the crop has been tricky to unearth,

earlier good weather means any price rises this year

shouldn't be on the scale we saw last.

If only it was just spuds that have been going up in price but it seems

the cost of almost every ingredient of a real roast dinner has been heading upwards.

How come? A professor of crop science should know.

Let's take a typical Sunday lunch, let's start with the meat,

the main factor influencing the price of the feed,

and that relies to a great extent on wheat, maize and soya,

and supplies of these cereals around the world.

These are at a reasonably all-time high

but they are expensive compared to historical trends.

And what about the greens?

The price of beans fluctuates depending on where they are sourced.

Some of our green beans come from Kenya and so are influenced

by the factors affecting farmers growing those in Kenya.

Lastly but definitely not least, why is the price of pudding on the rise?

If you think about a chocolate pudding,

the price of cocoa from which we get chocolate is at a two-year high.

This is due again to enormous demand from Europe for supplies

of cocoa, but also some dry periods in the African monsoon

that affect the producing regions in Ghana.

So it seems the wallets of British shoppers are being squeezed

by a double whammy of growing demand across the globe

for food and extreme weather events.

It's clear there is more to the cost of the Sunday lunch than meets the eye.

Rising food prices don't always have anything to do

with producer profits, and I'm sorry to say,

relief from bigger food bills doesn't seem to be on the horizon.

The influence of consumers on the price of production is relatively limited.

Producers are really restricted. They need to make a profit

from their business, but their profits are controlled

by their fixed and variable costs,

that are really reducing the margins at the farm gate.

It's the balance between a supply of food and the demand for food,

but also whether events in different parts of the world will also

influence the price on a week by week basis.

So with British consumers only a small cog in the global food chain

and the price of food increasing across the planet, it seems unlikely

we are going to escape the cost of our weekly shop edging upwards.

But back at the Larkin family home in Manchester, Kate at least

has found a strategy to stretch the family budget

as far as she can without giving up that Sunday roast.

I would definitely still keep cooking a roast dinner on Sunday, definitely.

I have my staple items that I get every week,

and then I build up my shopping list from what I'm going to cook

that week, and I just put those items in my trolley

and I'm not swayed by any of the advertising that stores do

to make us buy things that we don't necessarily always want!

Here at Rip-Off Britain, we're always ready to investigate

more of your stories on any subject.

Confused over your bills or just trying to wade through

never-ending small print?

When they sit you down to sign up, they don't really give you

the chance or the time to read through all of that small print.

Maybe you are unsure what to do when you discover you have lost out

and that so-called great deal has ended up costing you money.

These people have ripped me off well and truly.

Or you might have a cautionary tale of your own

and want to share the mistakes you made with us.

You can write to us at...

Or send us an e-mail to...

The Rip-Off team is ready and waiting to investigate your stories.

I think it goes without saying that absolutely none of us

like paying any more than we think we should for anything,

let alone for the essentials in life,

but as we've been hearing, sometimes the reasons our food costs

what it does can be a bit more complex than it might at first appear.

The cost of the actual food itself may be only a relatively small part of the final price tag.

But you know, while pricing isn't always clear-cut, there are all

sorts of other costs and overheads that can come into the equation.

You can't help thinking that at least in some of the situations

we've been talking about, we should not have to pay

quite as much as we do, so we end with simple advice.

If you're not happy with what you're being asked to pay, don't buy it.

That's good advice actually right across the board.

Always make sure you really are comfortable with what you spend,

even if that does mean you have to shop around a bit.

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

and we will be back with more investigations very soon,

but until then from all of us...

-Thank you for your company, we'll see you soon.

-Goodbye.