This week I read about how the last quarterly financial reports showed a rather big decrease in the profits of Israel’s biggest supermarket chain (you can read more about it here). The mayor reason is a decrease in last quarter’s sales, meaning that people bought less food than before at this particular chain. The trend shows that private consumption is going down in almost all areas. So the question in this particular subject is: are people buying less food at the big chain stores or are they simply buying less?
As I have mentioned in previous posts, we are on a food budget. That means that we have budgeted NIS 500 (US Dollar 145) a week for groceries and cleaning supplies. That is not a big budget for food in this country and it means that in order to keep within this budget, we have had to make changes to the way that we shop and consume food.
The first change is planning our meals a week ahead to be more focused in our shopping, buying what we need in order to minimize food waste.
The second one is going less to the supermarket. We go one time in the beginning of the week and if needed one more time towards the end of the week to supplement things like milk and eggs. Go figure, going less to the supermarket means spending less money on food!
The third change is buying less processed food. Buying the basics and making as much as possible ourselves. As an example, these are things that we very seldom buy: bread, salad dressings, pasta, frozen meats. But she has all the time in the world, you think to yourself, she works from home! To be honest, it is all about habits; the more you do something, the faster you can make it. For example, baking a bread takes me about 5 minutes to make the dough and 30 seconds to put in a form, other than that it takes care of itself. With pasta, we have entered a whole new world and it still takes us some time to do. On the other hand, the cost is minimal and the outcome is fantastic….
Whatever the reason that people are buying less in the big food chains, I know that we are continuously trying to cut our costs in this area and are all the time looking for ways to do so. Every step on the way, we will be happy to share with you.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject….
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