Pre-Packaged convenience comes at a cost

It doesn’t matter whether its takeaways from your favourite burger place, a grab-and-go meal from the corner dairy or service station or fish and chips conveniently pre-prepared and pre-packaged foods comes at a cost. It’s always more expensive than preparing your own food at home from scratch. But there are hidden convenience costs lurking on the supermarket shelves too.

There has been lots of political and media chatter about supermarkets and their pricing in recent months, and this has encouraged me to check pricing more closely. The results are not only surprising but also show one strategy supermarkets use to encourage you to spend more, often on convenience packaging.

I want to focus this column on the fresh fruit and vegetable section in supermarkets. An area where bright shiny packaging and beautiful, faultless produce make it both attractive and easy to shop, just pick up some pre-packaged vegetables and put them in your shopping basket, easy, right?

However, this convenient packaging comes at a cost, both environmentally and to your pocket. If you take the time to compare the per kilo price of produce in convenient pre-packed form against the loose produce you select yourself you will notice the price can vary hugely, sometimes by as much as $10 per kg!

Before we get into pricing, something you can control by choosing not to buy pre-packaged produce, let’s also consider the produce itself. Would you rather eat snack carrots that have been washed, processed and packed in plastic some days ago or maybe freshly dug carrots with the green tops still attached, the green tops being a great indicator as to freshness? I know we prefer the freshest produce we can buy.

Also buying pre-packaged produce means you may be buying more than you actually need and end up throwing some away, and that’s a waste of both money and food. Food waste in this country is already a significant issue so why buy more than you intend to eat.

Again, let’s look at carrots, why buy a 1kg or 1.5kg bag of pre-packed carrots of dubious quality when you only need two or three over the next few days? Buy less, throw less away and save money too, it makes sense to me.

As to pricing, let’s have a look at some specific examples that were available at New World and Pak ‘n’ Save during the week ending 20^th July. I have focused on these stores in this column because it is where we happened to shop during this particular week, but I have noticed similar pricing strategies at Woolworths and Fresh Choice supermarkets too.

Meadow Mushrooms portabello mushrooms beautifully presented in a cardboard tray wrapped in plastic was $5.99 for 200gms ($29.95/kg) at New World and the very same mushrooms from the same producer were $19.99/kg loose. The supermarket kindly provides paper bags to use, and you can buy just the right amount for the dish you are going to make. That’s a huge $10/kg saving and no cardboard and plastic wrapping to dispose of.

At Pak’n’Save 400gms of Pam’s brand white button mushrooms conveniently packaged on a plastic tray wrapped in plastic were for sale at $6.99 ($17.48/kg) while the loose product was just $12.99/kg. Why pay for packaging you only have to either recycle or add to landfill, and why buy 400gms when you might only need 200gms?

I mentioned snack carrots earlier, $3.99 for 250gms ($15.96) of snacking carrots at Pak’n’Save with the tops conveniently removed, washed, trimmed and packed in plastic who knows when, compared to nice fresh bunched carrots with the tops still on for $4.49 a bunch (no per kg comparison). The same prepackaged snacking carrots at New World were priced at $4.99 a pack with a per kg price of $19.96.

There were many similar comparisons to make when I browsed the fresh fruit and vegetable isle but one that struck a chord with me was Pam’ s 700 gm pack of tomatoes at Pak’n’Save for $11.99 (17.13/kg) compared to tomatoes still on the vine for $14.99/kg. I know which tomatoes I prefer, and it’s not a pre-packed version.

So, checking the price of pre-packaged produce and comparing it to the loose version will not only often save you money, something that has become really important to many people recently, but will also be a lot kinder on the environment.

And let’s not forget the growers who sell direct from their farms to you. Places like 185 in Hope (on Fridays during winter), Conning’s, the growers at the Farmer’s Market and at the Nelson Market in Montgomery Square each Saturday. All of these producers grow produce, harvest it and sell it directly to you.

Supporting local growers directly is by far the best way to buy just the right amount of absolutely fresh produce, and more often than not, you will save money.

Published in the Nelson Mail 30.07.2025