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Cheap fruit and vegetables

Published: Sonntag, 7. September 2008

With the rising prices of everything including food it can be difficult to try and stick to your weekly food budget.  However with a bit of shopping around and keeping an eye out for offers you can still eat healthily on a budget and have your 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

First of all, it makes sense to try and buy seasonal produce as out of season produce will be priced up.  Also opt for products on offer.  Personally I prefer the half price offers rather than Buy One Get One Free (BOGOF) as I find if I have too much of one particular fruit or veg it won't all get used and will just end up going rotten.  I'd rather open my fridge and have a variety of fruit and vegetables to chose from to make meals more interesting and avoid monotony.

fresh produceLots of supermarkets are trying to promote and encourage people to eat their 5 a day by having half price and multibuy offers on a variety of fruit and vegetables.  For example, when I went to Asda a couple of weeks ago they were selling melons and punnets of plums for £1 and last week they were selling 2 punnets of blackberries, raspberries, cherries and strawberries for £3.  To help you find these offers easily I have provided, where possible, links below to the relevant supermarket websites listing the latest fruit and vegetable deals:

TescoAsdaSainsburysWaitrose and The Co-operative.

If you see any offers you like, my advice would be to grab them there and then as the same offer might not be available the following week - I've been caught out before!

My favourite store for cheap fruit and vegetables is Aldi as their prices are always low and they have great deals with their Super 6 offers.  Every couple of weeks they sell selected packets, bags or items of fruit and vegetables at a promotional price, usually 69p, sometimes 49p.  I have often bought a pineapple or punnet of grapes for 69p and a pack of 3 courgettes for 49p.  This can be quite a big saving especially when I've seen grapes retail at £2.49 a punnet in Tesco before!

red pepperSome supermarkets don't actively have special weekly offers/promotions on fruit and vegetables but will do every now and then.  For example at the time of writing Somerfield were selling bags of new potatoes, fresh pineapples, packets of salad, 8 packs of tomatoes and punnets of plums all for £1 each.  It's worth keeping an eye on all the different offers and promotions supermarkets have.  Many of them offer an email subscription service to their newsletters and special offers.  This means you can carefully plan your shopping trips and save time because you know exactly what you're buying.  If you live near a Farmfoods, Iceland or Lidl store it's worth keeping an eye on their offers too.

On a recent shopping trip to Morrisons I noticed they were doing a promotion where they were selling various things including fruit and vegetables at half price.  Sainsburys also have half price offers on various fresh produce.  Just to give you an idea, when I visited they were selling strawberries, cherries, blueberries and apricots all half price at £1.99 a punnet.  They also had broad bean, peas, courgettes, sweetcorn and salad potatoes on half price offer at 99p a pack.  Their best half price offer was on broccoli and bags small red onions and sweet onions at 49p each.

Another great place for cheap fruit and vegetables is your local market.  They often sell selected fresh produce at £1 a bowl and if you visit the stalls towards the end of the day, normally after 3pm, they'll be selling their stock cheap.  For example my local market will sell 2 bowls for £1.50 to try and get rid of their stock before packing up.